A Brief History
On March 20, 1985, 29 year old Libby Riddles from Madison, Wisconsin became the first woman ever to win the premier sled dog mushing race, the famed Iditarod.
Digging Deeper
Having moved to Alaska as a 17 year old, Libby became wild about mushing after watching her first race. Proving her abilities as a dog sled racing phenomenon, Libby won the 1978 Clines Mini Mart Sprint, the first race she competed in.
Moving up to the big leagues of mushing, Libby first placed in the Iditarod in 1980 and 1981 when she finished 18th and 20th respectively. At this point Libby had a racing epiphany, and decided to breed and raise her very own sled dogs, making a living as a fish seller while she trained herself and her dogs for the big race. This strategy paid off in the 1985 Iditarod when she became the first woman to ever win the grueling nearly 1000 mile race from Anchorage to Nome, both in Alaska.
The Iditarod race pits a musher and 16 sled dogs against other teams in a race through all the winter weather Alaska can throw at them, a body draining 9 to 15 days of hard sledding. The race commemorates the 1925 run of sled dog teams that transported vital diphtheria serum from Nenana to Nome, where an epidemic threatened to kill many people. The serum was sent in relays of sled dog teams, each with 100 mile legs of the 674 mile distance (the first 298 miles was sent by train). The mighty and famous sled dog, Balto, and his musher, Gunnar Kaasen (of Norway) led the final team into Nome and the city was saved. Dog and man both became legendary heroes. Interestingly, the route is modified from a Northern and Southern approach on even and odd years, with the latter route stretching 975 miles and the former 998 miles. Officially, the distance is 1049 miles to acknowledge Alaska being the 49th state, and people usually refer to the race as being 1000 miles.
Alaska sled dogs were originally a blend of Malamutes, Huskies and various other sturdy dogs, but in 1910 purebred Huskies were introduced and became the go to sled dog in Alaska. The popularization of snowmobiles starting in the 1960’s nearly made sledding/mushing obsolete, but enough sportsmen (and sportswomen) kept the activity alive so that in 1973 the first competitive Iditarod was organized. The event has grown to one of international importance and is a showcase for makers of winter apparel and equipment.
On this day in March, a month we recognize today as Women’s History Month, we are proud to note that the accomplishment of Libby Riddles was not a fluke, for the following year the Iditarod was won by yet another woman, Susan Butcher (born in Massachusetts, 1951), who went on to win 3 more times for a total of 4 Iditarod championships! (Sadly, Butcher died in 2006 of Leukemia at the age of 51.)
Libby Riddles historic win led her to become a professional speaker and author of 3 books. In a fascinating twist, her famous race victory inspired her to live as a Native Alaskan for the next 6 years.
Riddles and Butcher are the only 2 women so far to win the Iditarod, but with 5 wins between them, the fact that a woman is capable of competing against men in one of the most demanding and grueling sports events ever devised should be an inspiration for girls and women everywhere. Question for students (and subscribers): What other events in Women’s History do you find inspiring? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Jones, Tim and Libby Riddles. Race Across Alaska: First Woman to Win the Iditarod Tells Her Story. Stackpole Books, 1988.
The featured image in this article, a photograph by Derek and Julie Ramsey (Ram-Man) of a sign post in Seward, Alaska marking the start of the Iditarod Trail, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.
