Iditarod

The 2025 Iditarod Start Has Moved To Fairbanks

Sarah · February 21, 2025 ·

The Iditarod start has moved to Fairbanks. The start moving so far north and adding an extra day between the ceremonial start and the restart is a pain — but we adjust and move on. More daunting is the new trail is almost 200 miles longer. I’m grateful for once not to be racing. 900 miles of river running is boring and gives you too much time with your thoughts. There are no real changes in the landscape or sections of trail to require concentration. It is monotonous.

I don’t know what to expect from the team this year. Training started off stronger than ever but with no snow here since January training has been difficult. Travis has to balance the role of father and musher. He is doing it as well as anyone. Conditions have meant he’s had to travel to get the dogs trained. He craves that elusive victory but not at the expense of missing too much family time and for that i am so grateful.

Elias is quite the wild child. Little kids are exhausting, humbling, rewarding and enchanting. I find myself in awe of everything our son does, however simple. I find myself in a slower pace and more regulated to the sidelines than I once was. The passing of seasons can be so hard. I find myself reading more of adventures than having them myself and get ready once again to sit on the sidelines. Cheering too is its own virtue and I am lucky for what we have — even if at times I do feel like the sled dog that wasn’t picked for the team.

Travis is downplaying his chances this season, whether because he genuinely feels that way or to lessen the pressure on himself I can’t say for certain. It always seems like a mad rush to get to this point of the season and then time crawls painfully forward until the 3-2-1-go of the start.

Then the anxiety starts. I feel am stuck right now in the “hurry up and wait” phase but all too soon the race will start and my nights will be restless with worry and anticipation.

Turning Heads Kennel is Featured by The Seward Chamber!

Sarah · April 24, 2018 ·

One of the truly wonderful things about living in Seward is our incredible local community. All our human food in our Iditarod food drops for the last several years have been donated by local Seward restaurants and organized by our friends, the Walker family. Our dogs eat the best dog food out there too.

Nothing has been sweeter than coming back to Seward after Travis Beals’ 9th place Iditarod finish to such a supportive community. Everywhere we go, people beam with pride and congratulate Travis!

Imagine our delight, when the Seward Chamber of Commerce reached out to us to be a member highlight. It was a lot of fun sitting down with their questions about our business. Learn about how we got started in our business, our most important business advice, and all about our dog sled tours!

Make sure you check out our Turning Heads Kennel Member Spotlight!

The Role of Tourism in Racing the Iditarod

Sarah · April 18, 2018 ·

The role of Alaska Tourism in Racing the Iditarod — The Role of Tourism in Racing the Iditarod. Original Photo by Kalani Woodlock

It seems strange to think that a little over a month ago, we were in Nome completing a 1,000-mile journey with our dogs. While we work on organizing Travis’ stories from the trail we thought we’d write about the migratory lives that many in the mushing world live in order to fund this crazy lifestyle.

Dog sledding in Alaska is not a cheap sport to participate in and running Iditarod, makes dog sledding much more expensive. Racing a 1,000-mile endurance race requires lots of additional training which in turn requires the dogs to eat a lot more food and go through lots of booties. We go through approximately 6,000 booties over the course of a training season. Our dog food bill is more than our mortgage, utility payment, and truck payment combined! On the low end of the scale, mushers spender approximately $30,000 dollars to train and race a team capable of reaching the finish line in Nome. Lots more, if you plan on running competitively. Of course, regardless of what is said by animal right’s activists, the financials of racing Iditarod do not make sense. Teams finishing in the top 20 are, at best, breaking even. We participate in the Iditarod because we love traveling the trail with our dogs: nothing is more remarkable than going on a 1,000 mile journey with your best friends!

Although many mushers hope for large sponsorships to materialize to offset the heavy financial burden running an Iditarod kennel entails, the majority of Iditarod mushers and their handlers have to figure out how to finance the high cost of running dogs on their own. Many mushers look to Alaska’s booming tourism economy to make their winter dreams a reality. Alaska dog sledding tours help turn many mushers’ Iditarod dreams into realities.

Because the tourism industry allows mushers to continue to work with our dogs, it is heavily favorited by dog mushers. Mushers pursue dog sledding because they love to be around dogs and working in tourism allows this. Other popular occupations for Iditarod racers include construction as well as fishing which are also seasonal occupations here in Alaska.

For our kennel and our Iditarod ambitions, we rely on tourism. We operate two different dog sled tours out of our hometown of Seward, Alaska. At our kennel, we operate a dog sled tour that focuses on providing hands-on experiences to small groups of guests. Our goal is to share our passion for dog mushing and also to educate the public on dog sled racing and sled dog care. The tour includes a fun dog sled ride on a wheeled car through wooded trails where we perform a one-of-a-kind lead dog demonstration, showing off our dogs’ training and intelligence. We love this tour because it focuses on training new lead dogs and takes our guests “behind the scenes” to show how we use positive reinforcement to teach our sled dogs our dog mushing commands.

We also offer a dog sled tour up on Godwin glacier for those seeking a winter-like experience and wanting to experience Alaska dog sledding on snow in the summer. Guests take a helicopter ride up to Godwin glacier, mush for two miles, and enjoy the amazing scenery. It’s really incredible how you can go from a summer landscape to a winter landscape in just a short helicopter ride! Alaska’s beauty constantly amazes us and this tour has been described as “life-changing” and “the trip of a lifetime!” Our dogs certainly enjoy getting to go on a winter vacation and we frequently rotate the dogs between our kennel and our remote glacier camp.

Our tour operation gives us lots of freedom not only in how our tours are conducted but also in how our dogs are cared for. For us, our livelihood also allows us to work with our dogs day in and day out which has major training benefits. We believe our summer dog sled tours really help us as a competitive racing kennel as we can continue to work with dogs and train lead dogs, work on developing young talent, and building a cohesive team. Tourism is also a really great way to introduce people to our sport and teach visitors all about how we care for our sled dogs.

With this to look forward to after returning home from Nome, we slowly began packing up our Willow residence. It almost seemed like we couldn’t leave Willow quick enough — the snow in Willow was melting and after having been gone from Seward for over 6 months, we were ready to return home. So we began the long arduous process of moving.

The process has taken weeks and is slowly coming to an end with the final dogs arriving in Seward. We couldn’t be happier in returning home: our local community has supported us in every conceivable way — from throwing fundraisers, to recommending our tours, to even helping prepare our food drops.

We are excited for summer to begin and for the opportunities that await us. We look forward to meeting new friends and sharing our passion for mushing with our guests. In between, we will enjoy the sunshine, barbeques, gardening, and friends that only home can offer.

We are so grateful for all the support our kennel receives from visitors to Alaska. Thanks for helping turn our dream into a reality and allowing us to live this wonderful lifestyle with our dogs.

Bring on the summer! We can’t wait!

Just Mush

Sarah · March 3, 2016 ·

This morning, things finally got real. As we sat throug meetings and trail reports, the Knots I hadn’t felt all season slowly started twisting in my stomach.

I have been so sure and confident with too much to get done to have time to worry. But here we are, in the final stretch and suddenly I’ve realized what it is I’ve signed up for. It’s not just a thousand mile race. This is the race. Growing up, whenever I faced what I thought was a gargantuan task or something that seemed near impossible I told myself this is your Iditarod training. Soccer pratices where we did wind sprints until some of the girls puked. Waking up at 3 in the morning to summit mountains. Overcoming my fear of heights to be a rock climber.

All my life.

This is the goal that has pushed me forward.

And now here I am, standing at the edge of the cliff waiting to jump in.

Anticipation is the worst kind of worry.

But for now, I’m telling myself to just breath deep. Travis has a mantra – Don’t sweat the small. It’s all small stuff. And I’ve been repeating it over and over.

Don’t worry.

Just mush.

It’s all just dog mushing.

Iditarod Bloodwork & ECGS

Sarah · February 22, 2016 ·

We recently took our dogs for their pre-race health checks which includes Bloodwork and an ECG for each canine athlete.

Kip gets his blood drawn. Two vials are taken from each dog.

The ECGS are used to help eliminate any dogs who may be predisposed to having cardiac trouble from participating in the Iditarod.

Teddy is put on his side and held in place for his ecg

Iditarod gives ECGs as a part of its dog care program — Iditarod Bloodwork & ECGS 8

Blood is also taken and a variety of things are measured to help determine which dogs, at a cellular level, are more statistically likely to finish the race. These values can be used to help mushers determine which dogs to take.

Each musher is allowed to have up to 24 dogs vet checked. This allows mushers to continue to work with a larger pool of dogs.

For our kennel, we are able to vet check a combined 48 dogs between Travis and myself. We are actually allowed to swap dogs until we declare our final 20 dogs at the ceremonial race start.

As you can imagine, getting blood work done for 86 dog teams is no easy feat. Talking to the vet techs, who help make this happen we certainly learned how much goes into making sure every canine athlete is physically fit for the race. It takes over 20 days to do all the screenings for all the teams entered into the race.

We are fortunate that there are such dedicated volunteers who helped make this happen to helensure the safety of all dogs to participate in the Iditarod. We are also grateful that this is cupboard and part of our entry fee. What’s yours are actually able to sign paperwork that allows these blood samples and the results to be given to those in the scientific community to help continue on researchingsled dogs so that we can continue improving upon our dog care.

We’ve already learned a lot about the dogs because of the implementation of doing bloodwork. One of the most important things we’ve learned for example because the importance of vitamin E in muscle recovery in our dogs. Because of this, almost every Mosher supplements with a high-quality vitamin E.research a shown that dogs supplemented with vitamin E are far more likely to finish the race then dogs who are not supplemented with it.

Bloodwork can also be used to screen for such things as muscle myopathy, a condition in which the dogs muscles start to deteriorate and can lead to serious problems. Understanding this ahead of the race can allow mushers to take different dogs or take extra precautions.

After the blood work results come in, Stu Nelson the head veterinarian for the Iditarod calls each musher to discuss any significant findings so that mushers can make the best decisions for their team selection and help ensure the safety of all the dogs.

Here is a preview of our Iditarod line-ups:

This is just one of the many many ways Iditarod mushers and veterinarians workto ensure quality dog care and dog health from the get-go. Ironically, even though the dogs go through all these pre-race screenings, Their human counterparts are subject to no such testing. As a musher we do not have to have a doctors note, A doctors consent, or even proof that we are healthy enough to race. Everything about this event is focused on the dogs.