HUMAN
Name: Calvin Lawers
Age: 65
Residence: Anchorage, Alaska
Occupation: Retired Firefighter for Anchorage Fire Dept. & commercial fisherman
First Year Ran Iditarod: 1984
Years involved with Iditarod: Pretty much since it started in 1973
Iditarod Role: Musher
Current Location: Anchorage, Alaska
Date of Photo: March 3, 2026
Temperature: 68F Indoors
What is it about running sled dogs that you love so much?
About running sled dogs is just the peaceful quietness of it and kind of the oneness with the dogs and just being out on the trail with them. And I started when I was a real little kid. My dad used to have seven dogs and we’d sneak out late at night when my mom was asleep and he’d take me running. Just the quietness and peacefulness of it really got me interested and then later on in life, 1973, the very first Iditarod, he took me down to Tudor track and I got to watch the start of the race. The first year they had it, it intrigued me. I said, “Someday I want to do that.” But a lot of them is just the quietness and the oneness with the dogs.
Question 2: What, who or how and when & why did you first get involved running the Iditarod?
I got involved running Iditarod probably, as I was saying, because of my first experiences running dogs first with my dad, then witnessing the beginning, 1973, watching the Iditarod take off and I’m just always thinking that would be something I would like to do someday, didn’t know if it would ever be possible. And then a friend of mine and I had a few dogs each and we would run dogs and we said that when we’re 18, let’s run the Iditarod. Well, my friend did it. I thought if I don’t go to college, I’ll never go, so I didn’t do it. But after four years of college, coming back to Alaska, I was commercial fishing in Bristol Bay and met Clarence Towarak, who had run the race three times. And I ended up going up to Unalakleet running his dogs and training his dogs for him for some big races, the Kusko 300 and the All Alaska Sweepstakes race.
And then the next year he said, “Hey, anything you’d like to do with the dogs, you’re welcome to.” So I thought, “Okay, I’m 21 years old. Man, if ever I’m going to do it, now’s the time.” I didn’t have any real commitments tied down to any job and so I said if I made a certain amount of money commercial fishing, I was going to go and train and do it. So that’s how I got involved.
Tell me about just one of your most memorable experiences running the Iditarod:
My most memorable experience running at Iditarod was probably when I was between White Mountain and Nome. It was late in the afternoon, starting to get dark and I got lost up on the top of Topkok Mountain and it was snowing and blowing and I hadn’t seen any trail markers in quite a while and I was lost. And basically I put the snow-hook in, the dogs just laid down, fell asleep. I started walking around looking for markers or anything that might identify the trail and when I turned around, everything was blown over. I couldn’t see my dogs. My sled. Now, I was really in trouble and my headlamp was really dim because it was cold. I barely caught a look at a reflector that was on my side of my sled. So I recognized the sled, but it was almost covered with snow at that point. I was so happy to find it and the dogs were all sleeping, but I went over and just crawled in my sled and said I was going to wait till light and then try to figure out where I was, how to get down. This was before GPS.
So that was probably my most memorable experience was getting up, seeing the coast, just heading down to the coast. I don’t even think I was on a trail until I ran into a trail and then started running north towards Nome. A couple friends of mine were looking for me in an airplane and they came down, flew right over top of me and had their hands in the air like, “Where have you been?” And that was probably the most memorable experience from Iditarod.
What in life do you know for sure?:
For sure in life is that you’re going to have lots of challenges and there’s going to be lots of good things that are going to happen and lots of bad things that are going to happen. But for me, what I know for sure is God is in control and He has a plan for my life, He cares about me and no matter what I go through, I have a friend that’s closer than a brother and there’s nothing to worry about, simple as that…