Alaska News

Red lantern arrives in Nome, ending Iditarod 2014

Marcelle Fressineau was the last musher to cruise up Nome's Front Street and under the burled arch Saturday night at 7:42 p.m., bringing the tumultuous 42nd Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race to a close.

In a year that saw some of the biggest names in the race battered, bruised and blown out of contention, three rookies, all women, brought up the rear Saturday with successful Iditarods under their respective belts. After fellow first-timer Elliot Anderson scratched early Saturday morning, Monica Zappa led the remaining mushers through Safety and toward Nome with Lisbet Norris and Fressineau bringing up the rear. Fressineau sat in the red lantern position most of the day, pulling ahead of Norris late in the afternoon. Norris just barely regained her advantage, however, mushing into Nome only seconds ahead of Fressineau.

Greeting the final finishers

In Nome, an abandoned Front Street began to come to life shortly before 7 p.m. as an announcement summoned race fans to the finish chute to give Zappa "a nice, warm Nome welcome." Within minutes, scores of spectators had gathered at the chute to greet the 30-year-old Kasilof musher, who finished the race with 14 dogs in harness.

"The last hundred miles was really long," Zappa said in a finish line interview, saying snow and wind made the final leg of the trip take about twice as long as she'd anticipated. It was better than the Farewell Burn earlier in the race, though, she said, calling that experience "a living nightmare."

Norris and Zappa had mushed much of the race together, Zappa said; usually Norris was out of the checkpoint first, but Zappa would then pass her along the trail.

"She's always about a half-hour behind me," Zappa said. "It's worked out well, because she's rescued me a few times."

That half-hour lead proved consistent to the end; the two final mushers came up Front Street just a little more than 30 minutes later, mere moments apart, and race officials scrambled to make room for both teams under the arch. In an interview at the finish line, Norris said they had rested longer than expected in Safety to recover from a tough trip in.

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"We had a 14-hour run over from White Mountain," Norris said. "The hills were drifted in ... No one told me the Topkok Hills are mountains."

Norris, 26, grew up in Willow, "surrounded by dogs and loving winter," according to her Iditarod bio. She began training for distance mushing in Norway in 2011 and moved to the Mat-Su in 2012 to run dogs from her family kennel, Alaskan Kennels, which she says is the oldest Siberian husky kennel in the world. Norris mushes a team of all-American Kennel Club-certified Siberians -- not known for being the fastest breed in the race, but one that has a fiercely devoted following.

"When people talk about what they're looking for in a sled dog -- good feet, good coat, a good appetite, good drive to go," Norris told Alaska Dispatch in February, "you just described the Siberian husky."

Fressineau, 59, is a former adventure outfitter originally from Switzerland who now lives in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, where she guides wilderness dogsled trips. She completed her first long-distance race in 2012, coming in second-to-last in the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race with a finish time of 15 days, 7 hours, 11 minutes.

At the finish line, Fressineau set her hook and immediately rushed up the gangline to congratulate her dogs one by one, starting with the leaders. After a gear check and an official welcome to Nome, she was greeted by representatives from Wells Fargo, who congratulated her on her red lantern run. Handed the microphone, she had just one thing to say: "Thank you."

Fressineau's last-place finish time -- 13 days, 4 hours, 42 minutes -- would have been fast enough to win the race a little over 30 years ago; early Iditarod finishes were in the 14-to-20-day range. Libby Riddles, the first woman to win the race, braved a storm out of Shaktoolik to carve out an insurmountable lead in 1985. But even Riddles' winning time wouldn't have beaten these three rookies; she finished that race in 18 days, 20 minutes and 17 seconds.

And of course, all three women -- and the other 10 rookies who finished the race this year -- have the satisfaction of knowing they stayed the course on a trail that bested seasoned mushers like DeeDee Jonrowe and Jeff King.

Official Iditarod festivities will wrap up Sunday afternoon with the finish banquet in Nome.

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