After spending nearly two weeks traversing more than 1,100 miles of the Alaska wilderness, Duluth’s Emily Ford reached the finish line of her first Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race on Sunday.
Ford and her team passed under the famed burled arch in Nome with a time of 13 days, 1 hour, 35 minutes and 44 seconds — good for 18th place out of the 22 teams that finished the race, and the third-fastest time among this year’s Iditarod rookies.
Crowds lining the snow-covered street cheered Ford on as she reached the finish under sunny skies. Ford is the second Black woman to ever finish the Iditarod.
She started the race with a team of 16 dogs and dropped six along the way, finishing with 10. Race officials who interviewed Ford at the finish line asked her what spending so much time in the outdoors means to her.
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“It’s just this lifestyle of we get to be with our dogs and the land all at once. It brings me back to center,” she said.
Earlier in the race, at a checkpoint along the trail, Ford was asked by race officials whether the Iditarod was living up to what she dreamed about, in her lengthy preparation to compete. Ford said it was.
“I get to spend unlimited time with my little pack, and my sled becomes kind of my house or like my mobile home almost,” she said. “I’m out here with some of the best mushers, and it’s amazing to be on trail with them.”
Jessie Holmes won this year’s Iditarod, reaching Nome early Friday morning for a winning time of about 10 days, 15 hours. It was his first win in his eighth time running the race.
This year’s race was the longest on record, with organizers forced to move the starting line north to Fairbanks, because of a lack of snow along the usual trail.
Tackling the Iditarod was just the latest outdoor adventure for Ford, who gained attention in 2021 as she solo-hiked Wisconsin’s Ice Age Trail in winter.
She also competed in shorter, but challenging, sled dog races to qualify for this year’s Iditarod. Her partner, Anna Hennessy, raced in last year’s Iditarod and finished 24th out of 29 teams.
In her profile on the Iditarod website, Ford wrote that she wants “to continue to represent Black people in cold places” and that “everyone deserves to discover the outdoors, regardless of race, gender identity, or upbringing.”
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