HUMAN

Name: Mark Moderow

Age: 75
Residence: Anchorage, Alaska& Denali Park, Alaska 
First Year Ran Iditarod: 2004

How many years involved with Iditarod: Since the mid-1990’s

Iditarod Role: Musher, ITC Board of Directors, Past President of ITC

Current Location: Dena’ina Convention Center, Downtown Anchorage for Musher Banquet

Date of Photo: March 5, 2026
Temperature: 68F, indoors

Question 1: What is it about running sled dogs that you love so much?

I guess what I love about running the sled dogs is just the sheer adventure. It was a family experience for all of us. We started help. We started just because we were outdoorsmen and knew people. Moving here from Minnesota, I already knew some of the people involved in the Iditarod and went to school with some and knew people. Went to my first start in 1976.
Over the years, the kids started … Deb and the kids started helping another family prepare their team for the Iditarod in the ’90s. And we got our first sled dog and then we got another sled dog. The kids started racing and suddenly we had 39. And kids each did the junior Iditarod four times. And then they left for college. So then Deb and I, or Deb, my wife had been racing up to that time. She raced in 2003 and 2005. I basically did it because I was here and we had the dogs and for all those years I’d been the handler fixing the truck and grooming the trails and setting up the camps. So we loved it as a family activity all the way through.

Question 2: What, who or how and when & why did you first get involved running the Iditarod?

 

I got involved in actually running the Iditarod because I had 30 some dogs and my kids went to college. My son had run in 2001. My wife had run in 2003. And I had, for all the years, the experience of running the dogs. I loved camping and spending time on the trail. So since it was just Deb and I at that point, I trained for the year, ran my qualifying races and just went.

Question 3:  Tell me about just one of your most memorable Iditarod experiences running the Iditarod.

I guess my most memorable moments and experience on the Iditarod was just the quiet in the space, the long distances, a lot of runs done by myself, especially at night. But then other quiet experiences, camping next to Rick Swenson, who was a pretty good acquaintance of mine in Rohn. I should have never seen him, but he broke his sled up so bad he had to wait for a replacement. He and I got to talk for a long time.
Some of the best naps I ever took were in the sled between checkpoints and I guess just the long quiet and the time spent with the dogs. They taught me a lot.

What in life do you know for sure?:

 

What I know for sure in life is if you don’t want to go the whole distance, don’t take the first step. That’s kind of backwards from the old saying of you start with the first step. If we got one gift sled dog and our kids started running the one dog and the two dog races, and 15, 20 years later, there I was between Ophir and Cripple on the Iditarod Trail, an exciting trip all the time.