HUMAN

Name: Amy Rhyneer

Age: 53

Residence:  Eagle River, Alaska

Occupation:  Writer

Iditarod Roles: Volunteer/Trail Crew

Current Location: McGrath, Alaska

Date of Photo: March 10, 2022

Temperature: 19F Outdoors

What, who or how and when did you first get involved with the Iditarod?

I first became involved with Iditarod… I first became aware of it when I moved to Alaska in 1999. Became more aware of it when my kids started school and they had their own Iditarod races. They all would take on a musher, and they would make their dogs and they would make their sleds and they would have the race through the school and then they would follow it. So it became a big deal every March for the kids and I would follow it. I’ve been to the start a couple of times, but honestly not much of a mushing fan girl.

What is your Why? Why are you here TODAY and involved with the Iditarod? 

I am here today involved with Iditarod because my husband was here last year and fell in love with McGrath and thought how fun it would be to spend a week. And thought a great way to do that would be to volunteer for the Iditarod, which we were fortunate enough to be able to do and be trail crew. We brought a couple of friends from Fairbanks and we’re like, this is the best way to have vacation, is to work really really hard with no sleep.

Tell me about just one of your most memorable Iditarod experiences.

One of my most memorable Iditarod experiences has got to be the fact that I had no concept that it was going to be like this. When you think one thing about an organization or about mushing or about dogs or like any group of people and then you find out the real thing, like the specifics and the details and you live with them for a week that is always the best part. And so what great people, what a great town of McGrath. Great village people. So, like dedicated fans at two o’clock in the morning who are cheering on the mushers and are cheering on the volunteers. That’s a really fantastic thing. Besides the mushers who are super hilarious, many of them, the people who run the checkpoint, who are wonderful and gracious. So that’s the most memorable, it’s a very warm spirit, which we all need right now. Through all these really tricky times, people are figuring out in wonderful ways, and the dogs are flipping cute.

What in life do you know for sure?

What in life I know for sure is the lesson that I just learned again and that I have to learn every time, that you actually get invested in something, is that there’s always more to it. The more detail and the more you get to know a thing or a person or an idea in our organization, the more interesting it becomes and the more you find to have in common with it; the more we realize how alike we are rather than different.