HUMAN
Name: Shaynee Traska
Age: 37
Residence: Two Rivers, Alaska
Occupation: Winter tour guide, Summer greenhouse
First Year Ran Iditarod: 2018
How Many Years Involved With Iditarod: 1
Iditarod Role: Musher, handler
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 is just the bond that I have with the dogs. Almost all of our dogs we’ve raised from newborn puppies, and I just love being there when they take their first breath and then sharing all those miles on the trail with them together. It’s just so incredible to explore God’s amazing wilderness by dog team, and to do it with my best friends there’s just no other way that I would want to travel. It’s a pretty neat experience every time I go out there.
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 first heard about the race when I was nine years old back in 1998. My aunt and uncle had come to Alaska on vacation. I’m from Michigan originally. I was born and raised there. Aunt and uncle, Ron and Dorothy Erway came to Alaska during the summer season and just happened to meet Joe Redington and got to visit his kennel. They came back home that following winter, came to visit my parents and I, I’d never heard of the Iditarod or sled dogs before, and they started telling me all about Alaska and this amazing race that happens. For whatever reason it just struck me, and that day I told my parents, “I’m going to run the Iditarod someday.” They had a pet in Malamute that they had brought over, and so since it was winter, we hooked the Malamute up to a little kid’s saucer and tried to get it to pull me around the yard a little bit. I just knew from that moment on that is what I was going to do. So it took me 20 years to make it to the starting line, but gosh, what an incredible adventure. I started my kennel, then when I was 14 and it was always the goal to do Iditarod.
Question 3: Tell me about just one of your most memorable Iditarod experiences running the Iditarod.
My most memorable experience running the Iditarod is during a snowstorm on the way to the actual checkpoint of Iditarod. I was traveling along. There was another musher that was fairly close to me and he had gotten ahead of me. We were traveling down the trail, and all of a sudden we got into this big storm. It’s wide open country there, big rolling hills, not much for trees, and it was just snowing and blowing and the trail completely disappeared. We actually came upon another team that was stalled out. Their leaders just really didn’t know what to do in all that snow and not having a defined trail. The team that had gotten ahead of me had passed me was a veteran musher, and his dogs also weren’t really enthused about traveling down the trail at that point. So I was like, “Well, I’ll give it a shot and see if my team will go.”
I had this little girl named Kennicott in lead, and she’s one that I had raised from a newborn. We never encountered anything like that before, and she was there in lead and she just marched through that snow, and no signs of that trail. I could see tripods way up ahead, so that was how I knew, okay, we’re going to gee or haw around and try and find the trail, and she would just dive into that deep snow, leading the team around. It was just incredible to never have experienced anything like that before, and just the trust that she had in me and I in her to navigate through something like that. Then we helped lead those other two teams through the storm as well. Just really cool to watch her do her thing up there.
The dogs, they were chest deep in snow busting through it. So it was pretty wild out there, but I’ll never forget that this little girl of mine just did something pretty amazing. There were other teams there that didn’t want to do it and she stepped up to the plate and she’s like, “All right guys, follow me. I got this.” So it was pretty cool for sure.
Question 4: What in life do you know for sure?
What I know for sure in life is that I am loved by a God who wants nothing but the best for me. He has given, I believe, everyone a dream to follow, and I believe he placed this dream of running dogs, and having these best friends, and ultimately being able to see the state of Alaska by dog team in the Iditarod, and I’m just so thankful that He has allowed that adventure. I also believe that the dogs and what they do and how they run, that they are bringing glory to God by doing that as well, and just amazing to be loved by our Father, and then to go out into these amazing places with these dogs and worship Him while we’re out there. It’s a beautiful lifestyle. It’s tough, it’s hard, but it is amazing, and I am so thankful for the God who loves us and allows us to do these things.