HUMAN
Name: Bill Jack
Age: 81
Residence: Anchorage, Alaska
Occupation: Retired School Teacher, Author
First Year Ran Iditarod: 1991
Years involved with Iditarod: As a volunteer especially in Nome many years before 1991
Iditarod Role: Musher
Current Location: Anchorage, Alaska
Date of Photo: December 27, 2025
Temperature: 68F inside
What is/was your first and continuing motivation to run sled dogs?
My first motivation to run sled dogs was when I was actually living in Nome in 1975 and watching the mushers come in. I was inspired by the incredible dogs that the Iditarod has produced. Well, my continued motivation was just following the Iditarod for several years. And then, after watching the Iditarod finish, and especially in 1975, I was just amazed at the incredible logistics of it all. I really didn’t start buying dogs until 1981. I decided that, “Hmm, I think I want to try this.” And so, I started collecting them and it has a way of growing and multiplying.
Well, I started collecting dogs in 1981. So my wife and I, after collecting, immediately started racing in Nome because the Nome Kennel Club, which goes back to the early 1900s and the All Alaska Sweepstakes. So For the next 12 years, my wife and I raised and raced sled dogs, mostly local races we did. Every Sunday, they had races in Nome, 10, 20, 30, 40 miles. And then, at the end of the year, they always had the Nome Council Race, which was a 200-mile race, which actually would qualify you to run the Iditarod back then.
Question 2: What, who or how and when & why did you first get involved running the Iditarod?
So after 12 years of doing that, I decided that it was time to get out of the dogs. You didn’t have a break. It was 24/7 pretty much and all year long, so I think I was tired of cleaning up the dog lot. And my wife said, “Well, if you’re getting out of dogs, then you better do the Iditarod.” She said, “Because if you don’t do it now, you’ll regret not doing it when you could have.” Well, I was teaching full-time and I didn’t have any handler. I had about 17 dogs that was maybe capable of doing the Iditarod, and so we started training for the Iditarod. A couple of weeks before the start of the race, I really didn’t have enough miles on the dog and I was about ready to scratch, and I said, “Well, I think I’ll hook the dogs up Friday night after I get out of school and run them to White Mountain and back.” And that’s a 150-mile run.
So all 17 dogs came back really, really strong, and I told my wife, “It’s a go. We’re going to do it.” And so, 1991 was the first Iditarod. Back then, there were 70 mushers that started the race, and it also started right from Anchorage. The race started from Anchorage, and so, it went to Eagle River, and then once your time was written down and you had four hours to get to Wasilla where the race continued from Wasilla. So it was a little different back then. It was a little more difficult.
Tell me about just one of your most memorable experiences running the Iditarod:
My most memorable experience running the Iditarod… Actually, it was a couple, and the one was going through a blizzard leaving Unalakleet to Shaktoolik, and pretty much everyone was experiencing that along the Iditarod Trail. That was the year that Rick Swenson went through the blizzard from White Mountain to Nome and won that particular year. And while he was doing that, I was going through this blizzard into Shaktoolik and it was pretty scary. There was three mushers that passed me just before I dropped down onto that last 20 miles into Shaktoolik. And I was resting at the time and I took off and I never saw those three guys.
The blizzard, it was like going into a milk bottle, and apparently those three mushers went back into the hills, into the trees and camped. I never saw them when I passed them. And when I got into Shaktoolik finally I stopped at the first house that I came to and I’m banging on the door and this guy comes to the door and looks at me and sees my dog team at the bottom of the steps and says, “You came through this?” So it was a scary situation, but it was also an incredible display of two lead dogs that could not only… I think they just, they couldn’t see. They had to have felt the trail with their feet.
What in life do you know for sure?:
What I know for sure in life? Well, there’s a lot of things I know for sure, but one of the things that I think make a really happy life is having a purpose-driven life. And I think people with a purpose, no matter what it is, are just happier people.