Tag: alaska

Defending Iditarod champion Brent Sass leaves race over health concerns

Brent Sass, the defending Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race champion, withdrew from this year’s race on Saturday, citing concerns for his health.

Sass scratched at the Eagle Island checkpoint, a statement from the Iditarod said. Eagle Island is about 600 miles into the nearly 1,000-mile race.

“He didn’t feel he could care for his team due to current concerns with his periodontal health,” the statement said. The condition typically relates to gum disease.

A plane was being sent to Eagle Island to fly Sass off the trail, according to a video posted on the Iditarod Insider web page.


Defending champion Brent Sass mushes his dog team down Fourth Avenue during the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race’s ceremonial on March 4, 2023.
AP

“Yeah, I’m pretty sad, but it is what it is,” Sass’ father, Mark Sass, told Alaska Public Media. “I just want him to be OK.”

The Iditarod said all 11 dogs on Sass’ team were in good health.

Sass was in the lead when he arrived at the Eagle Island checkpoint late Friday night with an almost four-hour advantage over his nearest competitor, Jessie Holmes of Brushkana.

Holmes was the first musher to leave the Eagle Island checkpoint early Saturday morning. The 40-year-old Alabama native in 2004 moved to Alaska, where he is a carpenter and appears on the National Geographic reality TV show “Life Below Zero,” about people who live in rural Alaska.


Brent Sass poses for photos with lead dogs Morello, left, and Slater after winning the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Nome, Alaska, March 15, 2022.
Sass poses for photos with lead dogs Morello, left, and Slater after winning the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Nome, Alaska, March 15, 2022.
AP

The race started for 33 mushers on March 5 in Willow. It takes the sled dog teams over two mountain ranges, the frozen Yukon River and the treacherous Bering Sea ice en route to the finish line in Nome. Mushers had to contend with another issue during the first week of competition: Altering their race strategy because of high heat in interior Alaska.

The winner is expected to mush down Nome’s Front Street, a block off the Bering Sea, to the finish line either Tuesday or Wednesday.

Before the competitive start to the race, mushers greeted fans March 4 during a ceremonial start in downtown Anchorage and drove auction winners riding in their sleds for an 11-mile jaunt through the streets of the state’s largest city.

The 33 mushers represented the smallest field ever to start a race, one short of the first race run in 1973.

Since then, three mushers including Sass have withdrawn.

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Remote Alaskan town site of fatal polar bear attack on woman, boy

A polar bear has attacked and killed two people in a remote village in western Alaska, according to state troopers.

Alaska State Troopers said they received the report of the attack at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday in Wales, on the western tip of the Seward Peninsula, KTUU reported.

“Initial reports indicate that a polar bear had entered the community and had chased multiple residents,” troopers wrote. “The bear fatally attacked an adult female and juvenile male.”

The bear was shot and killed by a local resident as it attacked the pair, troopers said.

The names of the two people killed were not released. Troopers said they were working to notify family members.

Troopers and the state Department of Fish and Game are planning to travel to Wales once weather allows for it, the dispatch said.

Wales is a small, predominantly Inupiaq town of about 150 people, just over 100 miles northwest of Nome.

Fatal polar bear attacks have been rare in Alaska’s recent history. In 1990, a polar bear killed a man farther north of Wales in the village of Point Lay. Biologists later said the animal showed signs of starvation, the Anchorage Daily News reported.

Alaska scientists at the US Geological Survey in 2019 found changes in sea ice habitat had coincided with evidence that polar bears’ use of land was increasing and that the chances of a polar bear encounter had increased.

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Murkowski wins Alaska Senate race and Palin denied political comeback in House contest

Contests in Alaska’s Senate, House, and gubernatorial races were called on Wednesday, more than two weeks after Election Day. 

Former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin lost her latest attempt at a political comeback, losing the race for Alaska’s at-large district to Rep. Mary Peltola (D-AK). Peltola had previously won a congressional special election race over the summer to finish out the term of the late-Rep. Don Young (R), who died in March. She is the first Native Alaskan to serve in Congress. 

“WE DID IT!!!” Peltola said in a tweet on Wednesday celebrating her victory. She defeated Palin by about 23,000 votes, or 54.9% to 45.1%.

In the state’s Senate race, Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski fended off her Trump-endorsed opponent Kelly Tshibaka to win reelection to her seat. 

The centrist Murkowski, who was first elected to the Senate 20 years ago, won the ranked-choice election with 53.7% of the vote to Tshibaka’s 46.3%.

Former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin lost her latest lost her race for Alaska’s at-large district to Rep. Mary Peltola.
REUTERS

“Thank you, Alaska,” Murkowski said in a tweet on Wednesday. “I am honored that Alaskans – of all regions, backgrounds and party affiliations – have once again granted me their confidence to continue working with them and on their behalf in the U.S. Senate. I look forward to continuing the important work ahead of us.”

Finally, Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy was declared the winner in his reelection race against Democrat Les Gara and independent Bill Walker. Dunleavy prevailed by more than 50% of first choice votes. 

In 2020, voters in Alaska approved a switch to a ranked-choice voting system. Under the new system, the top four finishers in the states open primary elections advance to the general election, where voters then rank those four candidates from first choice to fourth choice. 

Kelly Tshibaka, a Trump-endorsed opponent, was only able to finish out with 46.3%. to Murkowski’s 53.7%.
Getty Images

Ranked choice voting was used this year for the first time in the state’s electoral history. 

After the Nov. 8 midterm elections, Palin was the first to sign a petition to repeal ranked-choice voting launched by the group Alaskans for Honest Government. 



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