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# 2017 Iditarod Official Start Moved to Fairbanks
- URL: https://ktna.org/2017-iditarod-official-start-moved-to-fairbanks/
- Published: 2017-02-10T09:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2017-02-10T09:00:00.000Z
- Description: by: Zachariah Hughes – Alaska Public Media Once again, the Iditarod is moving to Fairbanks. The race’s board of directors met today in Anchorage and voted unanimously to change the
- Author: KTNA Staff
- Tags: Local News, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-07-22 01:28

by: Zachariah Hughes – Alaska Public Media

Once again, the Iditarod is moving to Fairbanks.

The race’s board of directors met today in Anchorage and voted  
unanimously to change the starting point from Willow to Fairbanks. Almost  
immediately after the decision was made behind closed doors, Race Director  
Mark Nordman held a press conference that local TV station KTVA broadcast  
live on Facebook.

“Everybody was really somber. We went through communities and  
effects with, taking of the dogs first and the mushers and the communities  
and the cultural aspects and the economics and everybody knows what a big  
decision this was to make, and how it does effect so many. These are very  
good friends of Iditarod’s out there, and you know it’s tough for all of  
us.”

This is the third time the re-start has moved to Fairbanks in the race’s 45 year history. And it’s the second time in a row the event will not go through it’s southern route, skipping communities like Anvik, Shageluk, and Grayling. The Fairbanks trail heads west toward Galena before veering north to Huslia then back down to the Yukon. The general routing is similar to the original 1925 trail used during Nome’s diptheria outbreak.

Nordman says in spite of good winter conditions across the vast majority of  
the traditional route, snow is unacceptably low in one critical section of  
the trail in the Alaska Range around Rainy Pass and into the Dalzell  
Gorge.

“Fairbanks has good snow, even the coast has good snow, McGrath  
has good snow, but nobody was thinking snow. When you start seeing 12, 14  
inches up in the mountains that’s really low snow to try and go ahead over  
that terrain. We’re used to feet.”

Organizers were heavily criticized in 2014 when they decided to allow  
mushers to race through that same section of the trail. Ice and abysmal  
snow conditions led to injuries and equipment damage.

The Iditarod’s ceremonial start will still take place in Anchorage on the  
first Saturday in March. After that, teams will head to Fairbanks, where  
the re-start will take off on Monday the 6th.