Iditarod restart returns to its Mat-Su roots Sunday

What you need to know:

• After a weather-related move to Fairbanks in 2025, the race’s official restart will return to its traditional location on Willow Lake this Sunday, beginning at 2 p.m.
• The event is a major community effort and celebration. Hundreds of volunteers are helping organize the restart, with vendors, food and ceremonies planned at the Willow Community Center starting at 1 p.m.
• Officials said travel planning is important for spectators planning to attend the start. Large crowds are expected, parking in Willow is limited, and organizers encourage people to arrive early, carpool or use free shuttle buses running between Wasilla and Willow.

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The Iditarod is coming home.

After taking a weather-related detour to Fairbanks in 2025, the official restart of “The Last Great Race on Earth” will return to its birthplace in Willow this Sunday. And Willow couldn’t be happier.

“It’s something that a lot of people look forward to all year long,” said Marie Abbott, who is coordinating this year’s Iditarod restart Sunday on Willow Lake.

Abbott said the 975-mile race to Nome from Willow is central to the small Susitna Valley community’s identity.

“It’s a culture. It’s part of our history that we get to share with the world,” she said.

First contested in 1973, the idea for a long-distance race across Alaska goes back to a Willow Winter Carnival conversation in the 1960s between Dorothy Page and Knik’s Joe Redington Sr., who then enlisted fellow Valley residents Gleo Huyck and Tom Johnson to help him get the idea off the ground.

Today, Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race headquarters remains in Wasilla, but the race officially begins just outside the Willow Community Center at mile 69.5 of the Parks Highway. During a Wednesday press conference in Anchorage, Iditarod CEO Rob Urbach stressed the importance of the Mat-Su to the fabric of the race.

“We have our headquarters building and retail shop out in Wasilla (and) we run summer sled dog tours out there as well,” Urbach said. “So, we are a year-round ecosystem.”

Sunday’s events in Willow begin at 1 p.m., with souvenirs, warm drinks, vendor booths and food available inside and around the community center. The Colony High JROTC will present the colors, with the Colony Band performing the National Anthem.

“There’s anything from indoor vendors, food for everybody, local Alaska companies, and just a bunch of other stuff,” Abbott said.

Abbott said the restart is a massive community effort, with 324 volunteers from across the Valley and the world needed to help with everything from crowd control and security to timing, dog care and vendor coordination.

“It’s all over the United States. We have people that fly in just to be volunteers,” she said.

The Iditarod ceremonial start is Saturday morning in downtown Anchorage, but it doesn’t count toward the teams’ actual times. 

Mushers and their “iditariders” (who purchase seats aboard the sled via auction) will casually traverse the city’s multiuse trails 12 miles to Campbell Airstrip, where they’ll pack up and head to the Mat-Su for Sunday’s restart, which begins promptly at 2 p.m. After leaving Willow in two-minute intervals, the first teams are expected to arrive in Nome eight to nine days later.

While low snow forced a reroute in 2025, race marshal Mark Nordman said there’s plenty of snow along the trail for this year’s race. In fact, some areas near Elim were impassable until a few days ago, when volunteer trailbreakers with Elim Native Corporation cleared a route through heavy snow. That kind of buy-in from every town and village along the trail is vital to the race’s success, he said.

“It’s a kick to me to see the community support,” Nordman said.

Abbott said she expects well over 1,000 spectators to attend the restart, with hundreds more gathering for informal watch parties on the trail leading out of Willow toward the first checkpoint in Yentna. Parking is very limited in Willow, so spectators are encouraged to leave early, carpool, or take advantage of the free shuttle running between Wasilla and Willow.

Abbott said shuttle buses will run every half-hour from Wasilla High School to Willow (with a stop at the Menard Center) between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m., with return trips back to Wasilla from 4–7 p.m.

“Just remember, if there’s one accident, there’s one way in, one way out,” she said.

With the Parks Highway likely to be jammed with traffic, Abbott said it’s essential to make a transportation plan ahead of time.

“That’s why I’m saying leave early and use the buses.”

All the hard work and months of coordination are worth it when the first musher unhooks their sled and the 16-dog teams go screaming down the trail. For Abbott, that’s the best part.

“Listening to the dogs, watching all the community just smile, and being part of history.”

Matt Tunseh is a freelance writer from Southcentral Alaska. Write to him at matthew.tunseth@gmail.com.