Bob Hallinen / Anchorage Daily News Joe Redington , 80, founded the Iditarod 25 years ago and will start his 19th trip to Nome next week. "I thought I ought to be a part of it."

Never say no, Joe
Determination of Redington, others made Iditarod dream a reality

By Natalie Phillips
Daily News Reporter
February 23, 1997

He's a little old elf from Knik, disheveled and disorganized. His ideas can seem goofy, outlandish, even impossible. But his enthusiasm isinfectious, and he's not one to waste time discussing obstacles. They once called him the ''Don Quixote of Alaska.''

Now they call him Joe Redington, Father of the Iditarod.

At age 80, he is still a spry man, topped with a shock of grey hair hinting at red. His hearing is shot. He doesn't sleep much.

''He's likely to take a nap in the evening, then run dogs during the night, then sleep for a couple hours around 4 a.m.,'' said his wife, Vi, whorepeats for Redington what he doesn't hear.

''I don't think he has slowed down. He says he has, but he is still more active than most of the guys around here that are half his age.''

A few of the dogs he ran in early Iditarod races are still staked out on his 160-acre homestead, a place littered with dead refrigerators, wrinkled carsand bent bikes. The dogs are too old for Nome these days, but not Redington.

He's back to run the race he started 25 years ago.

''I was the one responsible for starting the thing,'' he said with a wink, ''I thought I ought to be a part of it.''

The impossible dream of 25 years ago has grown from a no-budget, unlikely trudge across Alaska wilderness to an internationally recognized, $3.8million-a-year business. The Iditarod has paid out more than $4 million in prize money; hundreds of mushers and thousands of dogs have madethe trip.

Bob Hallinen / Anchorage Daily News Joe Redington chops frozen meat into bite-size chunks for his dogs at his home in Knik last month.

Redington didn't get to run the first race; he was too busy trying to scrape together the promised $50,000 purse. Since then, he has entered the race18 times and finished 14. He finished fifth several times, with his best time being 13 days, 3 hours and 25 minutes in 1988, at age 71. Redington was born in rural Oklahoma, near Kingfisher. He grew up wandering the country with his brother and father looking for farm work.They settled in Bucks County, Pa., just before the Depression. That's where he met Vi. He was 14 and owned bird dogs then. In 1934, Redington and a friend set out for Alaska. They got as far as Seattle before their money ran out. They turned back. After four years in the Army during World War II, Redington returned to Bucks County and tried his hand at various trades, including welding andcar repair. ''He couldn't settle down to any one thing,'' Vi recalled. Eventually, he took a job as a demonstration driver for Jeeps, showing farmerswhat the vehicles could do. In 1948, he quit. He and Vi drove two of the Jeeps north to Alaska. A woman at a border trading post gave them their first husky puppy. ''I think she was happy to get rid of it,'' Vi recalled. Two years later, they had 40 dogs at their homestead, off Knik Road, about 13 miles outside ofWasilla. They married in 1953. Redington learned about dog teams from homesteading neighbors like pioneering mushers Lee Ellexson and Sharon Fleckstein.

Redington worked hauling construction supplies by dog sled to remote Dew Line radar stations and scratched out a living as a commercialfisherman and miner.

His dog lot continued to grow, but his interest in racing wasn't piqued until his sons started competing in the 1960s.

In the late '60s, the Redingtons and some of their neighbors started talking about commemorating the 100th anniversary of the purchase of Alaska.Dorothy Page wanted to preserve the historic Iditarod Trail. Redington wanted to stimulate the dying sport of mushing. Their discussions gave birthin 1967 to the Centennial Iditarod Sled Dog Race, a two-day, 50-mile race around Big Lake. It was billed as the ''world's richest race,'' with anunprecedented $25,000 purse.

It was a one-time event. Race organizers were unable to raise enough money to pay off their debt, let alone to stage a second race.

But the talk didn't die. Redington kept pushing.

In 1973, another race was announced. But when Redington promised a $50,000 purse, all but two of his fellow organizers, Tom Johnson andGleo Huyck, bailed out.

''Nobody had ever heard of that big of a purse,'' Redington said.

It was an absurd proposition.

''Ninety percent of the people never thought we could get to Nome,'' he said. Mushers wondered why they should try, since they knew Redingtondidn't have a dime in the bank the day the race started. They did it anyway. That sparked some greater interest in the race, but support never came easy. More than once, the race appeared to be on its last legs. ''So many things have tried to kill it,'' said Redington, who has served on the board since the beginning. ''Once we were $700,000 in debt. TheHumane Society tried to shut us down. But if anything is going to shut it down now, it will be the mushers themselves. Lawsuits. There may come atime where it gets too difficult to get insurance.'' As the race got too big, too fast and too fancy for Redington, he came up with his own projects to capitalize on the race's fame.

Bob Hallinen / Anchorage Daily News Joe Redington greets visitors as he returns to his Knik home after a January training run on some nearby trails. "I don't think he's slowed down," says Vi Redington, his wife. "He is still more active than most of the guys around here that are half his age."

He continued to buy, sell, trade and lease dogs and dog teams. He sold baseball-style musher cards. In 1993, he started taking would-be musherson a month-long excursion up the Iditarod trail for $15,000 a person.

Redington said he hopes to be a top-20 finisher this year, but he fears his dogs can't keep up with the sleek sprinting dogs so common now.It doesn't matter, he said. After he finishes, he'll fly home so that, on March 20, he can start back to Nome with three clients.

''That's how much I love the trail,'' he said.

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