The race took him throughout almost 1,609 kilometres (1,000 miles) of barren tundra and dense spruce forests, down dizzying gorges and up snow-capped mountains.

However on Tuesday, Alaska Native Ryan Redington emerged because the winner of the 2023 Iditarod Path Sled Canine Race, probably the most prestigious canine sledding event in the US.

This yr’s win, nonetheless, has particular significance for Redington who led a six-dog pack to victory in Nome, Alaska. The 40-year-old is the grandson of Joe Redington Sr, nicknamed the “Father of the Iditarod”.

The elder Redington, who died in 1999, was a seasoned canine musher who helped champion sled canine racing at a time when the custom was threatened by the growing use of snowmobiles.

He and businesswoman Dorothy Web page launched the primary Iditarod race in 1973.

Tuesday’s winner is predicted to carry house an estimated $50,000 purse, out of a complete of $500,000 in prize cash for all the event.

The highest three finishers on this yr’s race had been all Alaska Natives. Within the ultimate dash, Dena’ina Athabascan sledder Richie Diehl and 2019’s winner Pete Kaiser, who’s Yup’ik, joined Redington on the entrance of the lineup. Redington himself is Inupiat.

He turns into solely the sixth Alaska Native to win the race.

The rivals confronted some surprising hurdles, nonetheless, in making ready for his or her sprint from Anchorage to Nome. Most years common a complete of 63 racers within the event, however this yr solely 33 canine mushers registered, a file low.

Some rivals cited rising inflation as a trigger, with canine sledding already an costly pastime.

And on the path itself, rivals encountered unseasonably heat temperatures, with some Alaska communities reporting file warmth. “There’s nearly no locations that had been under freezing alongside the route,” Brian Brettschneider, a local weather scientist with the Nationwide Climate Service, instructed the Related Press final week.

Not solely did the toasty temperatures increase the prospect of sledding alongside mud and slush, but it surely additionally was taxing to the canines, who might overheat.

However at 12:15pm Alaska time (20:00 GMT), Redington sailed throughout the end line, fulfilling a childhood dream. It was his sixteenth try on the race.

“It took lots work, took lots of persistence,” he mentioned. “And we failed fairly a couple of occasions, you realize? However we stored our head up excessive and caught with the dream.”