HUMAN

Name: Glenn Findlay

Age: 70

Residence: Fairmont Hot Springs, British Columbia, CANADA

Occupation: Retired

First Year Ran Iditarod: 1982

How Many Years Involved With Iditarod: 2

Iditarod Role: Musher

Current Location: Fairbanks, Alaska

Date of Photo: June 21, 2026

Temperature: 79F outdoors

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

What I love about running sled dogs, for me coming from Australia, it was such a different endeavor to undertake and something that I was coached in by Joe Redington Sr. and came to love it with almost as much passion as Joe had because the dogs are just dogs. They’re unbelievable. They live to run and it’s just a pleasure to work with them and train them and to get over the finish line with them in Nome.

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

 

I got involved running the Iditarod because I met a person at a party in Anchorage in 1981 and I had a romantic idea in my head that I wanted to go spend a winter in the Alaskan bush with a fur trapper, but I was in Anchorage and there wasn’t too many fur trappers around. And I met this guy and he said, “Well, I don’t know any trappers, but I know a dog musher who goes out into the woods.” And he sent me to Joe Redington Sr. and the rest is history. I was basically a worker in the beginning for him looking after his dog lot and his dogs and all that. And then we moved into the bush and he said, “Well, there’s lots of dogs here. Why don’t you put a team together and enter in the race?” Having absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into, I did that under his guidance and yeah, off I went.

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

My most memorable experience running the Iditarod, I think was in the ’85 race. There was a massive windstorm on the coast around Shaktoolik and most of the mushers were holed up in Shaktoolik. And I ended up leaving there with, if memory serves, Raymie Redington, Burt Bomhoff, John Barron, and myself. We got out onto Norton Sound onto the ice and the wind was incredible. What actually happened was we went round in circles so many times the dogs said, “That’s it. We’re not following you idiots anymore.” And they all laid down. So we spent the night on Norton Sound in a 70 or 80-mile-an-hour windstorm. And the other three of them had a freight sled, so they got inside their sled and at least got out of the wind a bit. I switched in Unalakleet to a sprint sled so I couldn’t get in it and I sat on the ice with my back to the wind all night. Thank goodness that I had a parka made by Pam Redington that kept me alive. That was the best.

Question 4: What in life do you know for sure?

 

What I know for sure in life is the most valuable thing, as far as I’m concerned, is true real friendship. I’m here in Fairbanks right now to attend David Munson’s wedding who I met in 1981 and we’ve been the greatest of friends ever since, along with all the other people that I met at that time and most all of them were at the wedding. And we all got together, we sat down, we told stories, and it was like everything had just happened yesterday. So friendship is the most important thing in life.