Can Dallas Seavey secure a third consecutive Iditarod title for his family? Seavey, the 2012 winner, comes from an Iditarod legacy family. His grandfather Dan Seavey competed in the first two races, and his father Mitch Seavey is a two-time champion back defending his title. Dallas grew up on the Kenai Pennsula, working in his dad's kennel. He was surrounded by training and racing sled dogs his entire life, so it's no surprise that he took up the sport full time in 2008. Within seven months, Seavey and his wife Jen went from having no sled dog paraphernalia, "not one brass snap," to fielding a sixth-place Iditarod team, he said.
Growing up around mushing gives Seavey an edge. At 26, he knows nuisances that only the top tier of competitive mushers master. "Mushing is the worlds biggest Rubik's Cube," he said. "Every time you adjust one little thing, one little feeding, it affects everything else. So you have to have a complete understanding of every athlete that you're working with, a complete understanding of the sport, of the trail. So when you make a change, whether it's the foot ointment, or the harness that you use, or the run lengths that you're doing, or the rest types that you're doing, you have to understand how that is going to effect everything else."
Watch all of the videos from our musher profile series Voices from The Last Great Race, see slideshows from the trail and more on our Iditarod page. See this video on Vimeo or YouTube, and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more great voices from the Last Frontier. Contact Alaska Dispatch videographer Tara Young at tara(at)alaskadispatch.com.