Jessie Holmes, a former reality TV star, made history by winning the longest Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race on Friday. He celebrated with fist pumps to a cheering crowd and posed for photos with his two teammates, Hercules and Polar, both wearing floral wreaths on their heads.
Holmes was the first to reach the finish line in Nome, a Gold Rush town on the Bering Sea coast. The race, which began on March 3 in Fairbanks, had to be rerouted due to a lack of snow, changing both the starting point and course.
As a result, the usually 1,000-mile race became a grueling 1,129 miles (1,817 kilometers) through the Alaskan wilderness. Holmes completed the journey in 10 days, 14 hours, 55 minutes, and 41 seconds.
After crossing the finish line, Holmes expressed his joy, saying, “It’s hard to put into words, but it’s a magical feeling. It’s not about this moment now. It’s about all those moments along the trail.”
Jessie Holmes will take home a prize of $57,200 for winning the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, along with awards including $4,500 in gold nuggets and 25 pounds of fresh salmon for finishing first in earlier race stages.
This was Holmes’ eighth Iditarod, and he has consistently performed well, finishing in the top 10 five times, including third place last year and in 2022. In his rookie year in 2018, he placed seventh and was awarded Rookie of the Year honors.
Matt Hall, who hails from Eagle, a small community along the Yukon River in eastern Alaska, finished in second place. Hall, who began mushing at the age of 2, grew up with sled dogs as his parents owned an expedition company, guiding clients on weeklong trips.
After completing the race in second place, Hall described the extended distance as grueling, saying, “It was too long,” with a laugh.
Paige Drobny finished in third place, marking the first time a woman has been on the podium since Jessie Royer placed third in 2020. This was Drobny’s 10th attempt at the race.
Drobny, who lives in Cantwell, Alaska, with her husband Cody Strathe (also a long-distance musher), raises sled dogs at Squid Acres Kennel. The kennel’s name is inspired by Drobny’s master’s thesis on squid in the Bering Sea.
Holmes, originally from Alabama, moved away at 18 and worked as a carpenter in Montana for three years. He made his way to Alaska in 2004, where he found excitement running dogs in a remote area along the Yukon River.
Reflecting on his victory, Holmes said, “It’s been a truly amazing 10 days, and I soaked in every part of it — the lows, the highs, the in-betweens. … I’m really proud of these dogs, and I love them. They did it, and they deserve all the credit.”
He gave special recognition to his two lead dogs, Hercules, a half-sprint dog, and Polar, calling Polar “the brains behind the operation.”
Holmes now resides in Nenana, where he works as a carpenter and leads a subsistence lifestyle. He was also a cast member of the National Geographic program “Life Below Zero” from 2015 to 2023, which highlights the challenges faced by Alaskans living in remote areas of the state.
In addition to the snow shortage north of the Alaska Range that caused the starting point to shift to Fairbanks, race organizers had to make changes to the ceremonial start in Anchorage as well.
Due to a lack of snow, trucked-in snow was used to cover the streets in Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city. As a result, the usual parade route was shortened from 11 miles to less than 2 miles (about 18 kilometers to under 3.2 kilometers), and the number of dogs in the race was reduced.
This was the fourth time this century that the race had to start in Fairbanks instead of the Anchorage area because of snow shortages.
Only 33 mushers began the race in Fairbanks, tying with 2023 for the smallest field in Iditarod history. The drop in participants has raised concerns about the future of the race, which is facing challenges such as inflation, climate change, and pressure from animal rights groups.
During this year’s Iditarod, one dog, a pregnant female on musher Daniel Klein’s team, tragically died. Klein scratched from the race due to the death, as required by race rules.
Almost a third of the mushers dropped out early, including eight who scratched and two who were withdrawn for not being competitive.
This year’s Iditarod also honored the 1925 Serum Run, a historic event where sled dog teams delivered life-saving diphtheria medicine to Nome, saving the town from an outbreak.