#033 Iditarod Explained: The State of the Last Great Race - Robert Forto

What does the Iditarod sled-dog race look like in 2026—and where is it headed?

In this episode of The State I Am In, Manny sits down with longtime musher, media voice, and publisher Robert Forto to explore the evolving world of dog mushing. From the ceremonial start in Anchorage to the realities of running a kennel in Alaska, this conversation goes far beyond the race itself.

They dive into the rising costs of competing, declining participation numbers, sponsorship challenges, and the ever-present influence of controversy surrounding the sport. Robert also shares his unique journey—from discovering mushing through a Disney movie to building a life, business, and media platform around it.

At its core, this episode asks a bigger question:
 Can the Iditarod preserve its tradition while adapting to a changing world?

What You’ll Hear in This Episode

•  The emotional impact of experiencing the Iditarod start in person 
•  Robert Forto’s journey into mushing—and why it became his identity 
•  The difference between the ceremonial start and the real race in Willow 
•  Why the number of racers has dropped dramatically over the years 
•  The true cost of running a competitive dog sled team 
•  The role of sponsorships—and why many have pulled out 
•  The new expedition class and why it’s controversial 
•  How media, podcasting, and storytelling are shaping the sport 
•  The impact of animal rights activism on public perception 
•  What makes mushers different: grit, perseverance, and mindset 
•  Why the Iditarod may be at a crossroads similar to other major sports 

Key Takeaways

•  The Iditarod is more than a race—it’s a lifestyle and identity for those involved 
•  Financial barriers are one of the biggest threats to the sport’s future 
•  Innovation (like the expedition class) may be necessary—but not universally accepted 
•  Media and storytelling play a critical role in keeping the sport alive 
•  Despite challenges, the passion within the mushing community remains strong 

About the Guest

Robert Forto is a longtime dog musher, podcast host, and publisher of Mushing Magazine. With over 30 years in the sport, he brings a rare combination of hands-on experience and media insight. He also teaches dog mushing at the college level at the University of Alaska Anchorage—one of the only instructors in the country to do so.

🔗 Where to Find Robert

•  Website:www.mushing.com
•  Podcast: The Burled Arch
•  Facebook, Instagram, TikTok: @RobertForto

Transcript

Manny (00:25)
So my family just recently, I mean this weekend, Iditarod's Kicking Off. That was our first time experiencing the ceremonial start firsthand. I mean, people have told me about it. I've seen it on TV, but to be there was pretty special. I felt like I was getting to be a part of something way bigger than just me, just cause you're

every single sled that goes by and all those dogs, you know, there's a story attached to it. ⁓ It was just really cool, really cool to see that just as my first time experiencing the Iditarod. For someone that's been a part of that world for so long like you have, does seeing the Iditarod still hit the same for you or like what comes to life when you're there watching?

watching those dogs take off

Robert Forto (01:24)
I've been involved in dog mushing since 1994. I got my start after watching the Disney movie, Iron Will. And with that, I was hooked. I was attending college in Portland at Portland state. I immediately packed up the U-Haul as they say, and moved to Minnesota and got a team of dogs. And from that point on, I realized at one point,

One day I'm going to run the Iditarod and fast forward many years later, uh, we moved up here in 2010 to chase that crazy Iditarod dream. Things have gotten in the way as they do with life, but, uh, that's still on the horizon. I don't want to be the oldest rookie to run the race. The oldest rookie I believe was 74 years old. So I still have a couple of decades before I reached that milestone.

But yeah, when I'm down there, yeah, when I'm down there, Manny, it's, it's, know, it's what we live and breathe every day here. And just to see so many of my colleagues and friends, so excited to take off on the ceremonial start and then dead set serious. The next day up here in Willow, when they hit the trail, I mean, it's like a light bulb goes off for those guys from the circus atmosphere of the ceremonial start and all the fans and

Manny (02:22)
Wow, I didn't know that.

Robert Forto (02:49)
You know, all that going on for, you know, all the hoopla that Anchorage has for that. then just 24 hours later, it is game time and it is, it's a, it's a different world. And as soon as they hit that trail, thousand miles to Nome as they say, ⁓ it can make and break people, ⁓ like no other for sure.

Manny (03:11)
Yeah, that makes sense. With a competitive sport like that, it's one thing to see a athlete in the parade afterwards. It's another thing to see them in the game. They're not waving to fans and distracted by all the hoopla, like you said, going around. That would be interesting to see both of those, the ceremonial start as well as Willow. And I know a lot of people show up to Willow for that. ⁓ You yourself live in Willow.

Is that something you have been able to see year after year?

Robert Forto (03:43)
I think we've gone over every time we went over just the other day at the time of this recording, we took our snow machine over. ⁓ my wife and I were about five to 10 trail miles, I guess it would be from here to the Willow community center. And yeah, I don't know if we've ever missed a year, ⁓ but Hey, it's a great time. Like I said, it's fun seeing all of my friends take off and just hanging out and being a part of the media gives its own.

little flavor to it because we can get in the, you know, in the media area and, you know, talk to people and ask them questions and see things that other people don't. And I think that's pretty cool as well.

Manny (04:25)
Well, Robert Fordo, I appreciate you taking the time out of your day to hang out with me. And there's no better time on planet earth right now to discuss a mushing in the Iditarod than right now. Like you said, it's it's was underway at Willow just a couple of days ago. And to be able to speak with someone that has been a part of this world much longer than I have. ⁓ And you follow it in in a way that's kind of unique. You

You have experience in mushing, but then you have this media aspect too. You have a podcast where you're discussing mushing. And the more I looked into you and your story, the more that I realized that this may, mushing may be more than just a sport for you. ⁓ It almost seems like part of your identity. Would you agree with that?

Robert Forto (05:13)
It is my identity. know, you hear a lot of times, Manny people introduce themselves by what they do. They'll say, Hey, my name's Bob. I'm a plumber or Hey, I'm, I'm a mechanic or whatever. And of course I often say, Hey, my name's Robert. I'm a dog musher or whatever. And that of course sparks all kinds of interest, especially if nobody knows what that is. And if you travel outside, they don't know what that is unless they've been involved in this culture. So yeah, it's definitely part of

of my identity and, ⁓ for the last 30 odd years, it's been a lifestyle. think more than an identity, it's definitely a lifestyle.

Manny (05:49)
Yeah, you mentioned you watched a movie that was, that kind of triggered you towards this journey of ⁓ wanting to compete in the Iditarod Someday, you know, becoming a musher. You came from out of state. At what point were you like, you know, the rubber meets the road and you're like one foot in front of the other, or I guess for that analogy, put it in drive and start heading ⁓ towards pursuing those dreams. What was kind of the catalyst for you?

Robert Forto (06:15)
How far do you want to go back?

Manny (06:18)
Well, I guess so. Were dogs a part of your life at all? Did you have any idea that maybe a sport like this, a lifestyle like this was even remotely a possibility or did this completely come out of left field for you?

Robert Forto (06:18)
You

Well, let's see. In 1987, I was in high school. I had a cyber and husky. His name was Axl. Uh, if you're from that era, you know, a guy by the name of Axl Rose from guns and roses that was, uh, right when that, uh, band hit its peak. So I had to course name my dog after, you know, the biggest rock band in the world, but I started competing right out of high school. In competition obedience type trials, uh, you know, AKC stuff.

Manny (06:48)
Yeah.

Robert Forto (07:04)
and I would get laughed out of the ring by the little old ladies. was, you know, here I am, a teenager, had long hair, tied eyes, the whole nine yards, right? So I knew I was out of my element and I met up a friend, her name was Linda, and she had Siberians as well. And she says, do you know anything about dog mushing? And I said, no, I do not. She says, well, if you're ever down in...

the Georgia area and the Smoky Mountains area stop by and you can take a look at what we have. So being the young college kid I was, I jumped in a Datsun 280Z and took off towards Georgia. And long story short, we hooked up a dog team, took off through the mountains and I was hooked. I came home with two little dogs. Their names were Rutger and Reich. So at that time I had three sled dogs and I was off to the races, as you said. A few years later,

Of course, ⁓ that's when we moved to Minnesota. That's when I saw the movie, all of that that went on. And I just sort of kept my head down and do my, did my thing for, I don't know, half decade or so. And then at this time, chat rooms were huge on a platform called America online. So I'm dating myself big time by, by saying this.

Manny (08:21)
Yeah. AOL online.

remember AOL, but.

Robert Forto (08:25)
yeah. Yeah. I remember that very well. I was on a chat room on a Saturday morning and a lady came on and she says, do you, she asked a question in the chat. Does anybody know how I can teach my dog how to pull my kids in a wagon? And of course I jumped on and I said, well, I do, I know how to do that. I'm a dog musher. And she says, what's a dog musher? And I said, have you ever seen the movie iron will?

Going back to that movie. And she says, yeah, I have seen that. And I said, well, that's me. Next thing you know, I flew to Colorado and, uh, one thing led to another. got married in the whole nine yards. And by 2010, we had, uh, made plans to move to Alaska in this very place where we're sitting. And that's a very cool story in of itself.

Uh, and here we were, we, we had, we had the property, we had the sled dogs at that point. We had the trails, uh, the iditarod was literally in our backyard. And, uh, every, then, every single waking day has been involved with the sport of dog sledding. Yep.

Manny (09:36)
So

the woman on the chat room that was looking to learn how to get dogs to pull the wagon, one, you're in Minnesota and she is in Colorado. And then so you go out of state and then basically you fall in love with this woman. Is that what I'm understanding?

Robert Forto (09:43)
Yep.

Yes.

That's exactly what happened. ⁓ more than anything, think, Manny, fell in love with her kids. she had three little kids at the time from a previous marriage and there's all sorts of interwoven stories there, but she had a little girl, her name was Nicole. She is our business partner today. And my goodness, you know how it goes when you, when you have toddlers running around. yeah, within, within a few months,

Manny (10:18)
Hmm. Yeah.

Robert Forto (10:22)
as they say, ⁓ love blossomed or whatever you want to call it. And being the vagabond I was, I packed up all of my stuff and moved to Colorado and started, started the second phase of my life, if you will.

Manny (10:37)
Wow. Was there a learning curve once you arrived to Alaska? know, for being in the lower 48, you have this idea of what mushing is, you know, the Iditarod, and then you show up on the scene, you're in Willow. Do you feel like you were welcomed in that community right off the bat? Is there like a proving ground that needs to take place first? What was your experience with that?

Robert Forto (10:38)
Yeah.

yeah. It's like night and day. mean, it, it's like, ⁓ I would say something like maybe.

Uh, the minors in baseball and then major league, that's sort of how it was. You know, we did well where we were at in Colorado, Minnesota, racing in that scene. But when you come up here and just the vastness of Alaska, uh, right off of our property, we have maybe two, 300 miles of trails just right in our backyard. And as you know, living where you live with the, uh, with the mountains there, right there off the peninsula, it is a vast area. And yeah.

Manny (11:10)
Okay.

Robert Forto (11:36)
The community was cool, but I think more than anything, it was just the learning curve of everything that Alaska has to do with it, you know, with the weather and the snow and, know, if you've lived anywhere else, winter is one thing, but if you live in Alaska, it is everything in the winter. you

Manny (11:56)
⁓ Did you have a kennel right off the bat with the intention of racing? Like was that an immediate ⁓ thing that you were a part

of once you guys got here and were established?

Robert Forto (12:08)
No, at the time we only had two dogs, ⁓ Bodie and Reagan, two Siberian Huskies. And I worked with a kennel right down the street from us, ⁓ worked with them for about a season and a half. took my wife and kids almost a year and a half to get up here. We were closing down a business and selling our house and doing all the things that you do when you're moving from one location to another. So I was up here for that time alone and yeah, I was learning.

everything I could about the Alaskan Alaskan mushing scene. So, you know, a couple of times over that time we would purchase dogs from kennels and, know, do the thing. And it took about that time before we had a viable kennel to do what we wanted to do.

Manny (12:53)
⁓ When did media intersect with mushing for you? When you reached out to me, I believe it was on TikTok, you said you'd been podcasting for a while since 2009. And how did those two worlds, love mushing and I love this public media or this media ⁓ aspect as well. When did those two things intersect for you?

Robert Forto (13:01)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

We were really early in the podcasting game. started our show at the time it was called dog doctor radio, and we started it in our training center in Denver. We had a dog training center and an old vet office. And on Saturday mornings after group classes were over, we would invite people into the lobby. We had a couple of microphones set up. mean, these, we had no idea what we were doing. We had the cheapest mics that you could possibly buy with a cheap computer in the whole nine. But anyway, we asked them questions.

Manny (13:33)
Okay.

Robert Forto (13:48)
about their dog training needs. You know, why is my dog pulling on the leash or jumping on the furniture or whatever. And we just hit record. And we turned that into a podcast on a platform called blog talk radio. At the time you could do a live show. So very similar to radio, except over the internet where you could get chats and guests and all sorts of things calling in. ⁓ it's a lot more technical to do that these days than it was back then.

But, ⁓ we did that for about a year or so. And then in 2010, right before I moved up here, I was doing an Iditarod report called Mush You Huskies on the same feed as our dog training show. And we would do a little bit of an Iditarod report, ⁓ you know, talk about where people are on the races and all of that. And that continued on for quite a while. And just, I don't know what was two, three years ago now.

The former owners of mushing magazine called me right out of the blue and they said hey Are you interested in buying mushing magazine? I said I was I was actually driving down the road in Maine at the time I said, I don't know. Let me talk to my wife But anyway, we flew up to me to to Nome Alaska and we were sitting right there in the offices of the Nome nugget They also published that old newspaper and I said to them why in the world do you want to sell?

this magazine to us. And the guy said, we've listened to every podcast episode you've ever done. We want you to be the, the carry honor, if you will, of this magazine. I don't know anything about publishing, don't know anything about magazines. And I said, yep, let's do it. And we took that over, ⁓ December of 2023. So just shy of two and a half years from now. And yeah, it's, it's, it's now a little media empire, if you will.

Manny (15:40)
Wow. So you have the podcast, so the stuff going out on the airwaves, but now you have a published magazine. And honestly, I mean, I don't even know, like the relevancy of magazines, do you feel that with like the digital world? ⁓ Everything is online, everything is on your phone. Is there digital versions of the magazine or is it 100 % print?

Robert Forto (15:41)
Yeah. Yep.

Manny (16:10)
⁓ What's been the learning curve, I guess, for you entering into that ⁓ published media?

Robert Forto (16:13)
Well, the learning curve,

yeah, the learning curve, it's probably the hardest thing I've ever done in business is to figure out the print aspect of a magazine. it was probably a hundred percent honest with you is probably a dumb business decision to buy a print magazine in 2023, but we went ahead and did it anyway.

But all of these subscribers, they've been subscribers since the eighties, you know, for decades. And one of the first things they said is, Hey, we still want print. And, you know, we're still trying to figure out, is that the right way to go? Cause it's very expensive to print. It's very expensive to mail. It's an international publication. So we still do our best to publish four times a year, the print magazine. And what's cool about a magazine still that you do not get from digital.

Manny (16:40)
wow, yeah.

Robert Forto (17:04)
Is you just get that, not only do you get it to hold in your hand, like a book, but just the, the, photos that people are taking just pop off the page. You know, all of those things is just something that you don't have nowadays. Cause everything, like you said, is digital. And like you said, we met on Tik TOK. Tik TOK is 10, 15 seconds and you're moving on. Right. There are people with this magazine that have them on the shelf that are two, three, four decades old, which is amazing to me.

Manny (17:26)
Yeah, yeah.

Hmm.

Robert Forto (17:34)
So we're still keeping

Manny (17:34)
Yeah.

Robert Forto (17:35)
it up and still plugging away, still learning on the curve, as you said, but yeah, we'll keep it around for a little while. Yeah.

Manny (17:45)
That's awesome.

That's awesome. And I think it's a cool ⁓ just to be in media. There's a lot of people that are in media right now that have never done anything print or maybe never will do anything print. ⁓ So I think it is a cool thing to have in your repertoire as far as like a media business goes. That's pretty cool. ⁓ I mean, there's no doubt just talking with you for, I mean, this just couple minutes that.

Robert Forto (17:55)
Right.

Manny (18:13)
You might be like the longest tenured person involved in this world that I've ever spoken to. it's kind of cool to be able to tap into your insight and just your perspective on mushing as a whole. I'm sure you've got to talk to some pretty amazing people in the sport, some amazing people that probably maybe they've never competed or you've never read their name in a headline or a news article,

Robert Forto (18:19)
Hmm

Manny (18:33)
But I want to talk about the Iditarod as a whole. When you look at the history of it, like many sports, there are standout years or standout seasons. As you reflect on however many years of Iditarod that you've been able to ⁓ either witness or at least just

Robert Forto (18:38)
Mm-hmm.

Manny (18:55)
read about or experience. Do you have some stories either of mushers or years alone that pop out to you when you reflect on those times?

Robert Forto (19:05)
Uh, the big standouts of course are the first Iditarod back in 1973. It almost didn't happen. We just did a very cool series on our podcast with the guy from the first Iditarod and he has, boy, he has some stories to tell. Uh, but that's the first one that stands out. Uh, the early nineties, of course, uh, it was, it was at the height, uh, not only with sponsorships and entries, there were over a hundred people entering the race back then.

Then in the 2000s, of course, if you're from Alaska or you know Iditarod history, that's when a guy by the name of Lance Mackey came on the scene. He grew up pretty much right in your backyard there in Kasilof but he ran and won four races, Iditarods and Yukon quests and all that. So that was big time. A little bit on... ⁓

He was on the shoulders of some pretty great people, Martin Busser and Jeff King and Doug Swingley and those guys had all won four races. And then in the middle to 2000, in the middle 2000s or so, a guy by the name of Dallas Seavey again, harking from, from your area, his dad lives in Sterling there. He won six Iditarod. So that of course stands out. I think we were, we have, we were the only podcast at the time.

Manny (20:14)
Yeah, and Seward.

Robert Forto (20:26)
I'm trying to think of the year it's escaping me right now, but we were live on air. Uh, when he came in the finish on his first Iditarod, that was Dallas Seavey Uh, we were simulcasting at that time on public radio in Palmer. So that was kind of a cool moment as a media person and just sort of the shift of how things are going now, uh, sponsorship are really tough. Of course, there's all sorts of variables with that. Uh, this year there's only 36 entries.

compared to over a hundred, just 15 years ago or so. But those 36 people that are running, they're just as passionate as ever. There's still storylines to be told every day. You know, just like any sport, there's just so much to talk about.

Manny (21:14)
I wonder if the, is it the cost of keeping a kennel? Is it the sponsorships? Like when you look at it, what do you think are the major factors that influence the decline in numbers over the years?

Robert Forto (21:28)
There's an article just yesterday in the Anchorage Daily News that said it's about double the cost to run Iditarod now than it was just a few years ago. We have never run Iditarod yet. We have run junior Iditarod with my daughter a couple of times. So we know what it's like to be a competitive kennel.

But just from ours perspective, it's well over $2,000 a month just for dog food. We only have 30 dogs. So some of the bigger kennels like the Seavey's or any of those big time kennels, especially tour kennels, they may have upwards of a hundred dogs. So if you just triple that amount just for dog food alone, you're looking at what, uh, $36,000, $50,000 a year just for dog food.

Uh, so it's very expensive just to feed them and then to enter the race on, on a shoestring, it's probably 15 to $20,000, uh, to do it really competitively and, know, take off work or whatever you're going to do. If you factor in the, the amount of time you're off work for training, that's half your salary a year as well. So if you're making 50, $60,000 a year in salary,

add that on to whatever it costs to feed and care for your dogs. It's a very expensive endeavor. Mm-hmm.

Manny (22:46)
daughter and I visited ⁓ Seward a couple years ago at the Seaveys. did a ride. They

have like a tour stop there that a lot of the cruise companies will stop by. we've driven by, my daughter loves dogs and she thought it'd be a cool thing to go in the summertime and just see how they train and how the kennel operates. And yeah, there are a lot of dogs there. And I remember as part of the tour, they said, even if they win, you know, if they were to win the...

the Iditarod, it only covers just a fraction of the cost that it takes to operate annually. And so, yeah, I can see that being a big ⁓ factor. One of the things that I thought was interesting was one of the Norwegian competitors, I hope I don't butcher his name, but Kjell Rokki

Robert Forto (23:18)
Yep.

Shell, shell Rokki is his name. we, yeah, we, we tracked him down at the restart the other day. Cause we were. butchering his name just like you were. we said, Hey dude.

Manny (23:37)
Shell, shellrokey, okay.

Robert Forto (23:46)
How do you say your name? And he says, it's Shell. And I said, okay, well, okay. All right, Shell, we got you. so yeah, that, yeah. So that's He has never run Iditarod. He's in the expedition class this year. He and another team, a Canadian by the name of Steve Curtis, both are in this special class this year, different than any other year.

Manny (23:51)
Yeah.

So he made a pretty substantial donation this year. I think he's done it in previous years as well, is that correct?

Robert Forto (24:16)
And, yeah, Mr. Rokki donated quite a bit of money, think a hundred thousand dollars towards the purse and, ⁓ half of the entry fee for all of the entrance this year. So that's substantial, right? ⁓ and for him, you know, he's a, a millionaire, maybe a billionaire, I'm not sure, but he just wanted the chance not only to be involved with the sport, but, ⁓ figure out a way to give back as well. And I think that's what he's doing.

Manny (24:29)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, it was like hundreds of thousands of dollars. yeah, I thought it was cool that he was not only for the purse, for some of the Alaskan communities, the stops ⁓ in Western Alaska and ⁓ kind of put, yeah, put his money where his mouth is as far as the sport goes. Those type of contributions, has something like that ever been done before that you're aware of as far as? ⁓

Robert Forto (24:48)
Yep.

Manny (25:13)
competitors themselves trying to donate to keep the sport alive.

Robert Forto (25:17)
Not on that level.

Of course, ⁓ the entry fees have always been relatively high. think it's at least $3,000 right now, to enter the race. that's substantial. That's much more expensive than entering an iron man or something like that. if you're comparing the different types of endurance events, but, ⁓ yeah, it's definitely substantial. There are teams that have leased teams from other kennels like the Seaveys and, the Mackey's and so forth, the Bussers

And they pay substantial amounts for that. From my understanding that goes for about 50 to $70,000 to be able to do that. Now that doesn't go directly to Iditarod, but that's going to the kennels that they're working for. So often you'll have a, a class of folks that are able to do this. And you'll often see on the rosters, you will see, you know, doctors and professionals and you know, people that are able to do this. And then you have the.

The scrappiest of, of guys, ⁓ both male and female who are just putting everything that they can do on the line to be able to do a race like this. Class. Yes.

Manny (26:24)
⁓ You mentioned that expeditionary or expedition class. That's something that's new to the Iditarod this year, is that correct?

And so is that something that gets, I don't know, voted on, introduced by some board or is it just, like how did that even come to be? Has it been something that's been in the works for a while or did it just appear, did it appear out of nowhere?

Robert Forto (26:52)
there's always been a little bit of talk about it, ⁓ cause you know, in any race like this, you have your hardcore competitors who are out there to win it every year and they're just blazing the trail. Then you have those middle of the pack guys, guys and gals, that are doing their thing. And then you have the back of the pack guys who are often.

⁓ they're doing it for the experience. They're doing it for the adventure. They're just out there to experience the Iditarod. And for a long time, there has been talk about having sort of a pro-am type class where you have the pros out there than the amateurs. It's very similar to Iron Dog up here in Alaska, the, ⁓ snow machine race, but it has never been formally done or implemented. And this, the, this year, I guess, ⁓

Manny (27:32)
Mm-hmm.

Robert Forto (27:39)
Late last summer, it was finally announced that these, that this one guy in particular, Shel Roakey, was going to be involved. here in the community, ⁓ it's, it's really black and white. People are really for it or they're really against it. And the people that are against it are saying, Hey, you're taking away the spirit of Iditarod. This is a race, you know, all of this. And then on the other side, ⁓ you're hearing for the people that are against it or for it, mean,

Hey, these guys are adding necessary flood funds and media and all these other things. Let them do their thing. If they're not going to interfere with the competition, let them do their thing and experience it with all the logistics of the race, you know, all the checkpoints and all of that versus just signing up and doing on your own adventure, which is not only can be treacherous if you're out there alone, but also I would imagine pretty expensive if you're just doing it without really any infrastructure.

Manny (28:39)
Yeah, do they start that class like separately to the others, you know, that are actually competing or do they just follow the same like marching order?

Robert Forto (28:51)
They followed the same marching order. They were given bib numbers. And when we were watching the trackers on Iditarod Insider, that's sort of the behind the scenes subscription service that Iditarod offers.

⁓ that team, the rookie team who is being supported by Thomas Werner, who was a, I did run champion in 2020. ⁓ they were right up front. were, they were, ⁓ breaking trail, if you will. And I think they pulled back a little bit, you know, as you're going a thousand miles, there are people coming and going, people shift in spaces all the time. But, yeah, they put the pedal to the metal right outside of Willow and they were doing well. I'm not sure where they're standing right now, but the other team.

the Canadian team who is being supported by four time Iditarod champion, Jeff King. they were more to the back of the pack. They're more doing that adventure type, expedition, meaning just sort of taking it slow and doing their thing. And it's going to be interesting to see how it works out over the next couple of weeks.

Manny (29:51)
Yeah, I'm sure they'll probably learn some things about this class and what they want to do with it in the upcoming years. I can kind of see the controversy behind it because I'm a big baseball fan. And if you're familiar with baseball, you know that over the last decade, there's been a lot of new rules introduced, a lot of new things that they're trying to do to improve the game, to make it more appealing for younger viewers. And in some ways...

I was very, very hesitant to those changes because you look at the sport, you want to preserve it as it is and not make any changes to it. It's America's pastime and let's just keep it as it is. there's this whole strategy behind preserving the sport while growing it. And it almost seems like that's kind of the same crossroads that Iditarod is at in preserving this tradition. But then also,

looking at declining numbers of participants and all these other ⁓ external factors or just the challenges of maintaining kettle and the cost and the lack of sponsors and all this other stuff. It seems like it could be a strategic move to make this available in the future so that you do have more participants. Maybe you do get more exposure. Maybe, like you're saying, there's a variety of ⁓ ways and reasons that people may be introduced to it through this new

expedition class. ⁓ So I can relate with the struggle. Do you lean one way or the other?

Robert Forto (31:22)
I like it. I like the idea behind it. And speaking of baseball, that's a great, ⁓

analogy there, fan of baseball as well. And a couple of things that they did, as you know, they introduced the, ⁓ the clock for the pitching and all of that sort of stuff. And the reason they did that because, you know, people were trying to sit down to watch a game on a Tuesday night and it was taking three or four hours to get through nine innings of games. And they were just saying, Hey, you know, we don't have the attention span for this anymore today. Everybody's on.

social media and Tik Tok and Instagram and all of that. So they did that. And I think that they cut down the game by considerable amount, maybe a half hour or so. just some little minor tweak like that can really change things. And of course you heard all about it. It's ruining the purity of the game and all of these things that you hear, but it's time to progress, right? Here we are on a podcast. I never thought 15 years ago,

Manny (32:02)
Yeah, they did.

Yeah.

Robert Forto (32:23)
that we would be doing video and YouTube and all of those things that have come from podcasting over the years and making money off of it. Hey, we were just putting it up on the feed and it took us years before we made any money. And it took us even more years before we could say it was a substantial amount of money to become a business. yeah, it's a changing world for sure.

Manny (32:50)
Yeah, and you know, we'll see the, I could see the frustration of.

Like you kind of have to pick your lane. If you're going to do the expedition class, it's like, well, maybe you should start at the back and you're, you're forced to, ⁓ kind of hang back and not get in the way of, of, of the competitors. I could see that being just kind of like a common sense move. I don't know how, I don't know how the trail works as far as like, you know, is it, is it literally just one trail? Is it an area? You know, if, someone that's just kind of along for the ride, you know, are they blocking, you know, competitors that are trying to, you know,

gain speed, make some ground to their next checkpoint? Is that the way, like, could that be a real world possibility in this year's race?

Robert Forto (33:38)
Well, the trail on the trail in the, in the wooded sections, if you will, of Alaska is probably five or six feet wide. Now, when you get out onto the Yukon river and of course, on the coast in Western Alaska, it's much, much wider. You know, the Yukon river is what a mile wide or something like that. But the first third of the race, it's a pretty tight trail. ⁓

Manny (33:58)
Hmm.

Robert Forto (34:03)
Can they get in the way? Potentially, but there's a lot of people out on that trail anyway, especially, ⁓ folks that still use snow machines to go from village to village. know that that is a big transportation hub, especially as you move west. that's how people get around these days. they don't have cars and all of that. They're using snow machines, not so much dog teams anymore, but just going back and forth. ⁓ a big hindrance, I guess would be.

Manny (34:20)
Mm-hmm.

Robert Forto (34:30)
If there was an issue on the trail, say that there was a snow machine that broke down in the middle of the trail. How long is it going to take for that to get pulled away and moved out of the way or something like that? Otherwise, I think it's relatively fluid as they're moving their way down. And of course, these guys that are, that are the support crew for these two teams, I mean, these guys are, are I did a rod champions. They know exactly what they're talking about when they're out there on that trail. They just didn't say, Hey,

Thanks for your donation. Here's a dog team. We'll see you in Gnome in a couple of weeks.

Manny (35:00)
⁓

Yeah. You mentioned, you that you're able to kind of track ⁓ the Iditarod and on the website, it's like a paid subscription, correct? To see the GPS and the markers and everything like that. Has the Iditarod ever been televised? say like the Olympics, you know, we just came off the Olympics and every sport, every event, you know, at some point or another is making its rounds on television. I feel like in today's day and age,

Robert Forto (35:14)
Mm-hmm.

Manny (35:30)
there should be a lot of opportunity to be able to witness this live in some capacity. ⁓ I mean, for goodness sakes, my wife recently, this is kind of a tangent, but she said, you know, I was flipping around the TV the other day and on ESPN, there was a Quidditch game happening. And I was like, like Harry Potter Quidditch? And she said, yes, like dressed up, running around on brooms playing. I was like, I didn't even know that was a thing. And so my thought is if Quidditch can get its time on ⁓

Robert Forto (35:43)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Manny (35:59)
ESPN, know, it's from a fictional book. Has Iditarod ever had its moment ⁓ on television like that?

Robert Forto (36:10)
Back in the day there was ⁓ some coverage on ESPN. This is probably like I said in the heyday in the early 90s or so there were I'm trying to think Discovery Channel one of those type channels would do recaps, but they were always late because as you know production

things to get this done ⁓ is difficult. There has been some, of course, really good coverage aside from something like the Iditarod Insider. Right before COVID, we thought it was going to be the next stage of media ⁓ for the sport of dog sledding. They had the whole thing. And we talked about Dallas Evey earlier. He was one of the color commentators there and they had a whole sports center type set, you know, with the fancy desk and the

screens in the back and all that. And that went well because they were, they were traveling around the world at some of the biggest races, including the Bear Gryce in Minnesota and the Finn Mark over in Norway and all of that. And we thought, man, this is going to be it. then COVID smacked everything in the face and, that shut down pretty quickly. But, from my understanding, we were talking about, ⁓ shell Rokki. I believe it was called Creel Pets that put that on. I believe he was the founder.

Of that company that put on that coverage. So there are some tentacles that are still out there developing. So we'll see, you know, we do our part with our nightly podcast. ⁓ as far as I know, ⁓ we are the only one that's on every night right now. ⁓ there used to be one on Alaska pub. Every single night, every night, we've been doing that for 16 years. but, there used to be a.

Manny (37:37)
Yeah.

You're covering Iditarod every night? That's awesome.

Robert Forto (37:55)
A daily podcast on Alaska public media that shut down a couple of years ago and there's been some fits and stars, but we're the only one that's on every night from the banquet all the way through the finishers banquet. So well over two weeks we're here on the podcast.

Manny (38:12)
That's awesome. And what do people look up? Like do they have to have like Spotify or Apple Podcasts? It's something that they can find on YouTube. Like where do you direct people to go to be able to tune into that?

Robert Forto (38:23)
⁓ can listen on any of those podcast players, but one of those cool purchases with the purchase of mushing magazine is we got mushing.com and mushing.com is the spot, right? If you're searching for dog mushing on the internet, so they can listen right on our website. That's where a majority of our, of our listeners come from. have a, a player that's embedded right there at the top. Every, every time, ⁓ you know, you know, the deal as a, as a podcaster.

But they can listen right there on our website. And of course that drives traffic and so on and so forth. Mm-hmm.

Manny (38:56)
That's awesome. It's really cool to know that exists. One of the things that I noticed ⁓ and my kids noticed at the Iditarod, there were some protesters there. There wasn't a lot

of them, but they were there at the ceremonial start. How much do you think that plays into the Iditarod, ⁓ the perception of the Iditarod? Do you think that most people catch the vision and the tradition of the sport compared to, you know,

the few that are, and I don't even know which organization these folks were with, but how has that evolved over the last, you've been involved for, you said 30 years of mushing, ⁓ dog sledding, how have you seen that evolve?

Robert Forto (39:36)
Yep. Yep.

it is a thorn on our side and it's something that we think about every day. And I know that that sounds extreme, but it's the absolute truth.

there have been times not just for Iditarod, but there have been times where this organization has actually had people come in as handlers or workers for these types of kennels, like these tour kennels and all that. And, they've done the whole undercover thing where they get videos and then they, know, they just post the, the absolute extreme of those videos to tell their story. But yeah, it is a really big deal.

And for a lot of those big sponsors that have pulled out over the years, I mean, we used to have sponsors like, uh, Alaska airlines and Coca-Cola and Cabela's and Purina and. You know, places like that. A lot of those companies have pulled out because of the, of the messaging from some of these animal rights groups. So it's a big deal. mean, I try to think about how it would compare to something else.

I can't think of one that would be such a disruptor in a lifestyle or something like that.

Manny (40:50)
Yeah, it's one of those, ⁓ it's not fragile, but as far as the scale goes, like if you think of something, mean, we can make this kind of comparison. You think about football, NFL football, we actually, and just football in general, the sport of it, and we know the effects of repeated concussions and ⁓ CTE, ⁓ chronic traumatic encephalopathy, and like all the things that result of, you know,

repeated blows to the head and you know, some places have kind of cracked down on that sport for younger kids in local communities and with alternatives like flag football. I think even here in Slodotna recently, we have a flag football league that popped up. The high schools still operate the same as far as traditional football goes, but football almost seems like the NFL is like an untouchable. You can have the evidence there, ⁓ you know, and

it's not going to diminish their ⁓ progress as a sport or it's not gonna be any skin off their back. that the way that phrase goes? I don't remember how goes.

Robert Forto (42:02)
Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Manny (42:05)
And then you have, I did a rod, have dog sledding. It's a much smaller group of people to where you have something like that that gets blown out of proportion or like you said, know, going to the extremes to share these extreme scenarios.

with the public, that would be a really big blow to the sport just because the scale isn't even close to some of these other organizations.

Robert Forto (42:29)
Well, like you said with football, ⁓ flag football was a huge ⁓ change from their positioning ⁓ in the NFL in particular. Nowadays you see they have

All sorts of, of media around that and the guardian hats and all of those things that they use, all of that is a direct result from, ⁓ the science that came out of, of just that one thing, the concussions and the protocols all around that. So even the smallest thing is a huge change for, for sports and things like that. So obviously it's not nearly the scale in, in terms of, ⁓

Manny (42:47)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Robert Forto (43:09)
numbers or branding or anything like that as the NFL or any other sport, but anytime you're dealing with something niche, whether it be a sport or an activity or whatever, you have to figure out the best way to reach the people that you need support from, whether it be your fans or your sponsors or your partners or whomever. mean, it doesn't matter what sport it is. You have to have the ability to, reach those folks because if you

do have a disruptor in that space. They are very cognizant about how they want to ⁓ have their name associated with ⁓ that story. So whether you're a sponsor or whatever, ⁓ it would be the same thing. And I think that is sort of how it goes with the NFL in terms of comparisons.

Manny (44:02)
You know, one of the cool things that I've been able to do and you've been able to do as someone involved in media and podcasting and interviews is you get to just talk to people that maybe you wouldn't have crossed paths with otherwise. Or maybe you have. You're part of this very niche community and you've been able to, I'm sure, talk to a lot of different mushers, both on the internet and off.

what are some of the qualities that shine through with these these mushers that you have spoken spoken to like talking i spoke with bridget watkins last last year and sitting down with her and getting a feel for the grit and the tenacity and the determination like just my respect for her just soared because of of the hard things that

Robert Forto (44:42)
Mm-hmm

Manny (44:55)
that she was able to do the perseverance through injury and these crazy traumatic experiences with her SLA team, getting attacked by a moose. And so just talking to her, ⁓ I don't remember how long, it was like an hour or so, and you just get a feel for someone. And do you find that there are certain qualities like that that resonate throughout the mushing community?

Robert Forto (45:22)
First off, ⁓ Bridget is a hell of a storyteller. I had her on our show just a month or so ago when her movie just came out. think she's been on two or three times on our show. So anytime you can have people that come on this show that are really good storytellers is a cool, a cool thing to have, ⁓ you know, in any sport. Everybody can tell the same story. You know, how was your game today? If you're talking about baseball, well, went out and, know, hit a double and you got a home run and whatever.

But it's those storytellers that really shine through. So I think that's a quality I really look through, look for, especially on, on a podcast. But yeah, in the mushing community in itself, obviously, if you're going to do this day in and day out and the extreme temperatures that we deal with here, you got to have grit and tenacity and perseverance and all those sorts of things. That's just sort of the adventure side of it. But more than anything is just the willingness to push further. I know that that is grit and tenacity and all that.

But it's to overcome obstacles, you know, in any sport to be able to do that. One of the cool things that we have the privilege to do is we teach dog mushing at the two local universities here in Alaska. And we use sled dogs as the metaphor for team building. And when you get a group of college kids out there, we're just finishing up our class at APU right now. And to teach them not only the concepts of dog mushing, but how

These youngsters, I mean, they're in their early twenties can go on throughout life and use these experiences that they had in their college experience. And to be able to take that back and think, Hmm, I remember when I had this dog, Jazz as a lead dog, and I had these two dogs, Sully and Grohl as my wheel dogs, that they worked very well together in a team. And I can use that in my corporate job, you know, my office job in one capacity or another. So.

Just having folks like that that we can talk to and bounce ideas off of, because by far I am no expert. I'm part of the community, but you can learn every day from everybody. So that's why I enjoy talking to people the most.

Manny (47:32)
Yeah. How did you get involved with university in, in mushing? One, I guess I didn't even know you could do that as part of the university system, which is really cool. So do you want to talk about that aspect of it a little bit more?

Robert Forto (47:38)
Right?

⁓ I returned to school for a second bachelor's degree in 2014 on a dare from my daughter, the same little girl I met at the airport at three years old. she bet that I would, she would finish college before me. ⁓ I still won the bet, but anyway, ⁓ I went to, I went to school. I was in the, ⁓ health and physical education department at UAA. ⁓

I did my internship as a 45-ish year old guy doing an expedition in the Alaska backcountry with dog teams, fat bikes, and snow machines. We went on the Iditarod Trail for about 170 miles. That led into a teaching position there at UAA to teach dog mushing. And then a couple of years after that, I connected with the folks over at APU, which is literally right down the road from UAA and

We started teaching dog mushing there and from my knowledge, Manny, I think I'm the only instructor in the country that teaches dog mushing for college credit. So it's a pretty cool thing to hold your hat on, I think. Yeah.

Manny (48:54)
Yeah, for sure. Is that

a part of like a degree program? Is it just a standalone course that anyone can take? Like how does someone get involved with that as a student?

Robert Forto (49:02)
⁓

At UAA, that's part of the HPR department, which is the College of Health. So it is more of a elective type course over there. They used to have a whole outdoor track. They've, they've shifted gears a little bit, gone more towards the kinesiology part of it, sort of the body movement part. But at APU, they have an outdoor studies program, a bachelor's in outdoor studies. So it is

part of their program that they do things like this, whether it be dog mushing or sea kayaking or backpacking or things like that. And I remember a couple of years ago, we taught the course and there was a young man, I think he was from Minnesota. He said, I transferred up to APU so I could take your college course, which is pretty cool.

Manny (49:50)
Yeah, that's gotta be a really cool feeling. And yeah, what a cool thing to say that nobody else is doing this. What a cool opportunity you have. Have you seen any students go on to compete in the Iditarod?

Robert Forto (49:51)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Nobody has competed in the Iditarod, but one of the coolest things that we see is we post all of our stuff mainly on Instagram. And it is so cool to see students that you've worked with even five or six years ago, and they'll say, hey, is that Gromit in the team or is that Chief in Lead or is that Sully and Gro in Wheel or whatever?

And we've literally changed these kids lives so much that they follow us all those years later and they'll pop a comment. You know how it is with the comments, right? They'll pop a comment in and they will remember dogs names that they ran on their teams three, four or five years ago, which is pretty dang cool.

Manny (50:41)
Yeah, yeah.

Hmm. Yeah, that is pretty cool. Well, one of the things I always ask ⁓ people that are on this show, we live in Alaska. The show is based on just everyday Alaskans kind of doing their thing with cool stories or a certain area of expertise. So thankful that I got to talk to someone today ⁓ with the experience and the expertise in dog sledding and mushing today. So again, thank you for coming on and sharing with me, but

Do you have anyone that comes to mind, whether involved in dog sledding or not, that you think would be a great interview for the show?

Robert Forto (51:31)
⁓ boy. ⁓ just about anybody in the sport, would be great. ⁓ I can't think of anybody right off the top Manny, but I'm sure I could figure out somebody and shoot them your way for sure. There's just so many cool stories out there.

Yeah.

Manny (51:48)
is there anyone that you are rooting for this Iditarod? Any story that you're following specifically of an individual musher or anything that you're watching? You know, we kind of talked on the expedition class a little bit, but is there anyone that you're rooting for or any storyline that you're hoping to see unfold ⁓ in this year's Iditarod?

Robert Forto (52:06)
It's been a very long time since a woman won the Iditarod. That would be a very cool thing. There is a lady, her name is Paige Drobny. She runs out of Squid Acres Kennel up near Denali Highway. She has a hell of a dog team. She has the potential to do that. There's a woman out of Montana. Her name is Jessie Royer. She is just a force to be reckoned with out there. So very good possibility with that as well.

I'm rooting. always root for the ladies. ⁓ I think that, ⁓ this is one of the very few sports out there where it's an even playing field for both men and women. They do not get any preferential treat no matter what. they're out there grinding one way or the other. spoke about, ⁓ Bridget Watkins, her

Her family, ⁓ Alan Moore and Ali Zirkel, they were a force to be reckoned with in Iditarod for a very long time. And we thought for years that Ali was going to be the next woman champion. So that's the storylines I'm following. I don't necessarily have ⁓ fans of particular teams. I just like, you know, watching the race.

Manny (53:18)
Gotcha. I can relate with that. You just have an appreciation for the game. I watch baseball with the same kind of attitude. It doesn't matter if baseball is on. I might have a team that I lean one way or the other towards, but I just have appreciation for the game ⁓ itself. Well, Robert, I am so thankful that you took some time out of your day to hang out with me. If people wanted to follow you, we mentioned ⁓ mushing.com. talked about... ⁓

Robert Forto (53:21)
For sure.

For sure, yeah.

Manny (53:47)
Mushing Magazine and some of the ways that people can follow you. What are the ways on social media specifically that you're most active on that people can keep in touch with you?

Robert Forto (53:57)
I think I'm on every social media. Just search Robert Forto. That is F O R T O. I'm sure he'll put all the links in the show notes, but that's the best place. I'm probably most active on Facebook. I'm old. So you know how it is, right? So that's the best place. But if you're interested in mushing coverage by far, mushing.com.

Manny (54:19)
Well, thank you so much again for hanging out with me today. will definitely keep my eyes glued to what unfolds with this year's Iditarod, what the future holds for it. And I hope my listeners today got something out of this conversation to be able to just hang out with someone with the expertise of yourself. And again, thank you so much, Robert, for coming on today.

Robert Forto (54:40)
My pleasure, I appreciate it. You're doing great work over there and ⁓ keep the stories alive. That's what's important.

Manny (54:47)
Yes, sir.

Manny (54:53)
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Manny (55:35)
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