When staff at Pike’s Waterfront Lodge in Fairbanks got the news a few weeks ago that they’d host the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race for the first time since 2017, they immediately jumped into action.
“We’re already busy, but we love hosting the Iditarod,” said Michelle Davis, the lodge’s chief operating officer. “We’re so happy it’s here.”
Davis is among Interior Alaska residents who are hustling to get ready for the Iditarod next week after race organizers’ last-minute decision to push the route north due to dismal snow on part of the normal trail out of Willow. Many business owners and checkpoint volunteers along the revised route say they saw this coming, but it’s still a herculean task to get ready to welcome floods of Iditarod staff, mushers, spectators and — of course — the sled dogs.
Davis said her team comped about 40 rooms for the race’s mushers and organizers — even though they’re in the thick of tourist season for aurora viewing, and are almost completely booked out. On a recent afternoon, she walked through one of Pike’s few remaining vacant rooms, which could very soon be occupied by members of the Iditarod crowd. This one has a full view of the lodge’s live reindeer pen.
“We kind of wanted it to feel like a cabin — but not a cabin,” Davis said. “Like, more luxury, you know? And you open the window and you see reindeer! And then you can walk out your room and you can be right outside with the reindeer.”
Pike’s Lodge is a pet-friendly resort, but the reindeer room invite doesn’t extend to the dog teams. They scare the deer, so many of them will be kept at a nearby church.
It’s an exciting time, Davis said — especially for her international employees.
“I always let all our staff come out and watch a couple of the races when they're working,” she said. “So, it's going to be great for them to experience something they wouldn't have been able to.”
She said getting the lodge into the global spotlight at the starting line will be great for business. That sentiment was echoed in the public sector by Fairbanks Mayor Grier Hopkins.
“It means a lot to host the biggest sled dog race left in Alaska, and we're a big, strong supporter of our state sport,” he said. “I think our economy is ready and excited to have the influx in winter and build on our strong winter tourism as we've seen in recent years.”
Scott McCrea is the president of a local tourism marketing nonprofit, Explore Fairbanks. He said the logistics of having the start in Fairbanks with only two weeks’ notice is a bit tricky, since March is the city’s biggest month for tourism. But the fact that the race is on the small-side this year — 33 mushers, as opposed to more than 70 in previous years — could make it more manageable.
McCrea said his organization is already reflecting on the possibility that the city will host the Iditarod with greater frequency, as the climate demands.
“We're seeing here how the winters in Alaska are changing,” he said. “So it just probably won't be the last time that we’ll have it here. And if that's the case, we will proudly embrace it being here, and just kind of do what we do as Fairbanksans and try to make it the best possible.”
Further out on the trail, Galena is scrambling to get its race checkpoint ready. The town of just under 500 wasn’t supposed to be on the trail either this year — it usually only hosts the race every other year.
Tim Bodony, Galena’s checkpoint manager, said he’s getting lodging squared away at the community center, where mushers will sleep on cots gifted by the Red Cross to shelter people displaced by Yukon River floods in 2013. The dogs will bed down in the snow that covers a frozen lake nearby.
There’s also the food. Bodony said he expects residents to rally to cook for the mushers, as they’ve done in the past.
“We have to practice hospitality out here,” he said. “That's the way of the trail. You got people coming in with no ability to just simply go out to a restaurant, and they're reliant on us for that. And it gives Galena a good name.”
Bodony has a very specific set of instructions for his neighbors-turned-Iditarod-cooks: keep it hardy, keep it simple.
“Keep it comfort food-style,” he said. “Don't get too spicy. That's not going to go well. Mushers tend to want something that sticks to the ribs and is warm. Volunteers too. Once you've been outside all day, you just want something comforting to heat you up, and then you want to go to bed.”
The 2025 Iditarod will hold its parade-like ceremonial start in Anchorage on Saturday, March 1, at 10 a.m. Then, the race officially starts at Pike’s Waterfront Lodge in Fairbanks, on Monday, March 3, at 11 a.m. Lodge staff encourage spectators to arrive early to find parking and good spots to view the starting line.