Seeley Lake part-time resident Jessie Royer at the Willow Lake restart Sunday, March 8.
Iditarod veteran and two-time third place finisher Jessie Royer has offered dog sled rides for the past two years at the Rich Ranch Community Appreciation Day in December.
With 221 seacoast miles still to go, a young fan cheers Jessie Royer on at the Unalakleet check point.
This map shows both the northern and southern routes of the Iditarod. Both routes are just shy of 1,000 miles. The route changes every other year. The decision in the late 1970s to add the southern route has a three-fold effect. 1. The northern villages of Ruby, Galena and Nulato only have to deal with the large group of mushers, press and volunteers every other year. 2. The villages of Shageluk, Anvik and Grayling are able to participate in the race. 3. Every other year the race goes through its namesake village Iditarod with is now a ghost town.
Jessie Royer chats with mushers Brent Sass, Aaron Burmeister and Thomas Waerner with whom she shared her First to the Yukon Award five-course meal.
Jessie Royer arrives in McGrath just over 300 miles into the race.
ALASKA – Nine days, 17 hours, 47 minutes and 16 seconds after leaving Anchorage, Seeley Lake part-time resident Jessie Royer mushed her dogsled team into Nome, Alaska to a third-place finish in the 2020 Iditarod race. She arrived March 18, seven hours after first-place finisher Thomas Waerner from Torpa, Norway and just one hour after Mitch Seavey from Seward, Alaska. Prize money for each Iditarod involves a complicated algorithm, awarding incrementally increasing amounts for finishers 1-20. The rest of the finishers receive $1,049 each, symbolic of the approximately 1,000-mile race across the 49th state. Though the amount can't be computed until the last musher reaches Nome, Royer will probably get between $35,000 and $45,00. In addition to that prize money, Royer garnered other awards along the trail.
The northern Iditarod route had 26 checkpoints. Local adults, children and race volunteers stood in the Alaskan cold at the checkpoints and waited to see the first musher arrive in their town. Royer was the first to the McGrath checkpoint, earning her the Alaska Air Transit Spirit of Iditarod Award. The town of only slightly more than 300 residents gave Royer a warm welcome and a warm sendoff. Her prize consisted of handmade gifts from local artisans. Loretta Mailelle presented her with musher mitts of beaver and black moose hide adorned with Athabascan beadwork. Gary and Rosalie Egrass gave her a hat made from a beaver caught by Gary. Rosalie designed and stitched the hat.
On March 13, after six days on the trail, Royer was the first to reach the Yukon River and the town of Ruby, population 155. Ruby is 495 miles from the race's ceremonial start in Anchorage. The trail stretches another 480 miles to Nome. But being first into Ruby has a special perk. For 34 years The Lakefront Anchorage, official headquarters of the Iditarod, has presented the First Musher to the Yukon Award in the form of a five-course meal. The hotel's executive chef Roberto Sidro flew to Ruby and personally cooked the indulgent banquet.
The menu featured lobster bisque; blackened spot prawns, roasted pear, gorgonzola and arugula salad; seared, marinated duck breast wrapped in bacon and drizzled with orange glaze; ribeye steak with bourbon sauce, paired with mashed celery root and sautéed carrots. Dessert was wild berry cheesecake garnished with chocolate-dipped strawberries.
The Lakefront Anchorage General Manager Greg Beltz said in a press release, "We've come to recognize the fun and rewarding aspect of delivering such a spectacular culinary feast by our award-winning executive chef in a remote checkpoint on the trail. The musher who gets there first won't be disappointed and is sure to leave the checkpoint with a full stomach."
Royer invited early-arriving fellow mushers Brent Sass, Aaron Burmeister and Thomas Waerner to join her in the feast. She did not, however, invite them to partake of the "after dinner mint" of 3,500 neatly stacked one-dollar bills alongside a bottle of Dom Perignon served on a commemorative Alaska miner's gold pan.
By March 14 the coronavirus pandemic had caught up to Alaska, which experienced its first confirmed case. With their lonely treks across searing white expanses, the mushers were already unwittingly practicing extreme social distancing. The concern was more that international visitors and volunteers from other parts of Alaska and the lower states might spread the virus to the rural communities which had limited health services. Village schools, which normally formed indoor shelters at checkpoints, could no longer serve as rest stops for the mushers. A makeshift cardboard sign at Galena read: "Attention Mushers: Nulato checkpoint will be on the river. No Access to Village. You will have checkers, vets, judge and all your supplies but nowhere inside to sleep."
The Iditarod committee also decreed no personnel beyond those few essential ones would be allowed at subsequent checkpoints. They had already cancelled the Musher Meet and Greet and the Iditarod Finishers Banquet, traditional end of the race events in Nome. In addition they continued to discourage visitors from going to Nome to watch the racers come in.
Meanwhile, out on the trail, Royer's sled caught fire. She had packed up her trash, including a used HEET bottle, and set it on the sled next to a bag of used dog booties. She then proceeded to get the dogs ready to run.
"I looked back," she said in an audio clip released by Alaska Public Media, "the trash bag was on fire. The bag of used booties was on fire. The rope that attaches my sled to the gang line and my snow hook ropes were burning. I said 'Ack!' I raced back there. Flames going everywhere! I started throwing snow on everything." Royer laughed and then concluded, "I had to fix a couple of the ropes and whatnot, but it didn't hurt anything too much."
Despite the fire delay, Royer continued her leading run and was first to arrive at the Nulato and then the Kaltag checkpoints. Arriving first in Kaltag earned her the Bristol Bay Native Corporation (BBNC) Fish First Award. The award consists of 25 pounds of fresh Bristol Bay salmon filets, $2,000 and a wood burned art piece by BBNC shareholder artist Apayuq Moore.
"Fish First" refers to the underlying policy of BBNC: 1) salmon is and always has been the principal means of subsistence for the cultures of the region and must be protected for that reason alone; 2) salmon contributes to the economic health of our state; 3) because Bristol Bay produces the world's largest wild sockeye salmon fishery, we have a global human and environmental responsibility to protect this stock.
In presenting the award to Royer, BBNC President and Chief Executive Officer Jason Metrokin said, "Bristol Bay Native Corporation is excited to once again present an award that supports our Fish First value. Both dog mushing and fishing are longstanding traditions in Bristol Bay. We congratulate Jessie Royer on winning the 2020 Fish First Award."
That night, Waerner opted for a marathon run to Unalakleet, the next checkpoint on the trail. He covered the 85 miles five hours sooner than Royer managed it later in deep snow. It was a lead he maintained and gradually increased to the end of the race.
The final section of the race, from Unalakleet to Nome, follows the Bering Sea coastline, a section with a reputation for powerful winds and sudden snow squalls.
Royer is reported as saying, "Things are going to shake up on the coast. They always do."
Her prediction held true as Waerner raced to victory and Royer dropped to third place. She had placed third in the 2019 Iditarod also, but this year she had the added satisfaction of coming away with a number of first-place trophies: beaded beaver mittens and hat, a wood-burned piece of artwork, a commemorative gold pan, 25 pounds of salmon, the memory of a fantastic banquet meal and maybe enough money to offset the costs of the race.
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