Duluth racer Emily Ford finishes 18th in Iditarod

DULUTH — Just under two weeks into running the famed Alaskan sled dog race, Duluth’s Emily Ford finished 18th in the Iditarod on Sunday, completing the race in 13 days, 1 hour and 35 minutes. Ford finished with a 5-minute time difference from Keaton Loebrich, the racer in 17th place.

A first-time musher in the over 1,100-mile long race, Ford was one of 23 active participants in the final days of the Iditarod. Emerging from a field of 33 entries, she was the third rookie to cross the finish line in Nome, Alaska.

Ford completed the race with 10 dogs, down from the initial 16 she started with. Around 10 p.m. Duluth time Saturday, Ford left the second-to-last race checkpoint in White Mountain, 77 miles from the finish line. A little over 18 hours later, she made it to the final checkpoint in Nome.

Beginning in 1973, the Iditarod is now considered Alaska’s best-known sporting event. An homage to the state’s long history with sled dogs, including the famous 1925 run to deliver life-saving medicine to the town of Nome, the trail reconstructs the path that freight mushers used to run with their dogs.

While traditionally, the race begins in Willow, Alaska, organizers moved the race north to Fairbanks due to a lack of snow, creating the longest course in the race’s history at 1,128 miles.

Ford, 32, has built a reputation among the Duluth outdoors community as an adventurer, hiker, skier and sled dog racer. In her

Iditarod biography,

Ford said that as a kid, she dreamed of wild adventures in Alaska. Competing in this year’s race is finally making good on that dream, while “following in the footsteps” of past Iditarod finishers like Becca Moore, the first and, before Ford, only Black woman to finish the Iditarod.

Jessie Holmes, originally from Alabama, won the race Friday with a time of 10 days, 14 hours and 55 minutes.

Emma McNamee joined the Duluth News Tribune in February 2025 as a reporter covering K-12 schools and higher education in the Duluth area.