HUMAN

Name: Dee Dee Jonrowe
Age: 66
Residence: Willow, Alaska
Occupation: Kennel owner and professional dog trainer.
Years involved with Iditarod: 40

Iditarod Role: Musher. Currently covering it for the media

Current Location: Finger Lake Checkpoint, Alaska at Winterlake Lodge.

Date of Photo: March 9, 2020
Temperature: 30F/Outdoors

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

I first got involved in the Iditarod in the fall of 1980, actually 1979. My mother was excited about it and I had that spring tried to run the Rendezvous, women’s Rondy and realized that in living in Bethel I didn’t have perfect trails that could be used for training speed dogs, but I did have perfect trails for training for traveling across the state of Alaska. My mother, Peg Stout, was membership number 12 for the Iditarod Trail Committee.

What is your Why?..Why are you here today and involved in Iditarod?

I’m here today and involved with Iditarod because I love the event and I want to be able to portray the nuances in the stories of the dogs and the special passion that the people that are involved, not just as mushers but also as volunteers, and as the people, the media that are carrying it. There’s stories to be told out here. There’s lifetime experiences to be explained and to be learned and that’s one of the reasons that I want to be able to bring my, in my case, 42 years’ worth of experience to the plate and ask those lifetime questions.

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

I think one of my most memorable Iditarod experiences is finishing in the 18th place a month after my last chemotherapy. Every particular checkpoint was a great accomplishment in and of itself and a testament to the love that my dogs had shown for me in being careful with me and to have been able to even get to each checkpoint was my own reward much less to finish. Jeff took a picture of my leaders with me and you could see the cross of the covenant church behind us in the shoot, and I just thought it was a great prayer story. 

What do you know for sure?:

I know for sure that God has me in his hands. I know that in all the situations that I’ve been riding on that very edge of control, out of control, out of control of my life, physically and emotionally, I’ve been taken through some of the hardest experiences, harder than I ever thought I personally was capable of, and God has never forsaken me.