Alaska’s last great race has struggled to keep up its finances and increase participation. Now, a $300,000 gift from an “expedition musher” promises to transform the event.
Kjell Inge Røkke mushes his dog team across the Bering Sea.(Nils Hahn / The Nome Nugget)
Jessie Holmes and his Alaskan Huskies tugged their way over the frozen Bering Sea. He had spent the last nine days riding nearly 1,000 miles over some of the most inhospitable wilderness on Earth, where temperatures reached as low as 50 degrees below zero, as part of the Iditarod. Now, Holmes was on the last stretch, about to complete the brutal race once again in a stunning back-to-back victory following his breakout win in 2025. As the sun set in Nome, Alaska, his team pulled onto Front Street as throngs of people cheered and chanted his name. He bent over his lead dogs, Polar and Zeus, with a reddened, frost-nipped face. “I want to cry so bad,” said Holmes. “I’m so happy.” He’d won the race—along with its $80,000 top prize.
But Holmes wasn’t the first musher to cross the finish line. Kjell Inge Røkke, a Norwegian billionaire, had completed the journey around 33 hours before as a member of the Iditarod’s inaugural “expedition class.”
Røkke, who made his money primarily from corporate raiding and oil, paid more than $300,000 for the expedition honor. As a noncompetitive musher, he started with the traditional racers but wasn’t bound to the same rules. During the race, expedition participants—who also included Thomas Wærner, a fellow Norwegian and the winner of the 2020 Iditarod—could swap out their tired dogs for new ones, ignore mandatory rest periods, and “receive outside assistance in any form.” Wærner traveled with Røkke as a guide, accompanied by a crew on snowmobiles that helped set up camp, cook meals, and care for their dogs. And while expedition mushers were barred from interfering with the actual competitors, Holmes and other racers said that they were shouted at—and nearly run off the trail—by Røkke’s posse. Coming out of the first camp, Holmes said, Wærner insisted on passing him, and Wærner’s dogs nearly became entangled with his own team. “After that,” said Holmes, “I told Wærner I was coming for him.”
Røkke’s donation was the latest scheme to help fix the Iditarod’s struggling ledger. Since becoming CEO in 2019, Rob Urbach has pitched a range of solutions to keep the event solvent and relevant—including upgrading the subscription platform that allows supporters to watch the race online and the creation of a cryptocurrency called “IditaCoin.” The formation of the expedition class, however, has gained the most attention, and there are already plans to expand. In the future, Urbach said, the rapper Snoop Dogg could potentially join the race as an expedition member.
Why turn to stunt mushers? In 2025, the Iditarod saw the lowest number of participants since its inception in 1973. The race has faced hardships for nearly a decade—primarily, fewer sponsors and a declining mushing base. Since the pandemic, the price of kibble and veterinary services have nearly doubled from inflation.
Thanks to Røkke’s contribution, this year’s entrants paid half the usual entry fee, $2,000 instead of $4,000. The number of participants also increased by 12 percent. “We need to evolve,” said Urbach, “or the race will evaporate.”
Though noncompetitive, Røkke beat the Iditarod’s current northern route record of eight days, 11 hours, 20 minutes, and 16 seconds, which was set in 2016 by six-time champion Dallas Seavey. While the Iditarod emphasized that Røkke was “not part of official race standings” and “not eligible for prize money or Special Awards,” Norwegian media nevertheless celebrated him as a new record holder. Sirens announced Røkke’s arrival in Nome, but there was little fanfare. Only a couple dozen people, mostly his own crew, watched his approach. As he sipped champagne at the end of the race, Røkke was asked if he would stick around to see the real winner arrive. No, he said. He had plans in the Bahamas.
“We currently live in a world where billionaires can run countries if they want to,” said Jeff Deeter, a veteran Iditarod musher and this year’s third place finisher. “Have enough money, you can do what you want. Iditarod is no exception.”
Before becoming the Iditarod’s first expedition musher, Kjell Inge Røkke grew up in an average home in Molde, Norway. He dropped out of high school after struggling with dyslexia and became a fisherman, moving to the US in 1980 and eventually landing on a trawl boat in Dutch Harbor, Alaska. Less than a decade later, his company, American Seafoods, controlled 40 percent of the American pollock harvest in the Bering Sea by aggressively purchasing competitors’ boats and loans. His success was bolstered by introducing Alaska to modern factory trawlers that processed fish at sea. These massive ships could stay on the water through winter storms, often catching a fishery’s whole year’s quota before local boats had even left the shore.
Røkke was forced to sell the company following the implementation of the 1998 American Fisheries Act, led by Senator Ted Stevens, for monopolizing the lucrative Bering Sea pollack harvest. The factory trawls introduced to the region have contributed to the decimation of Yukon River salmon runs, on which Native villages have long relied, and moved the bulk of pollack profits, which generated $2.5 billion in economic activity in 2023, out of Alaska. The Iditarod trail passes through several villages starving for salmon, but, unlike most mushers, Røkke camped outside them during the race.
During his last years in Alaska, Røkke took over the Norwegian conglomerate Aker ASA, whose primary interests are energy, seafood, marine biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and asset management. In 2005, he was sentenced to 120 days in jail for bribing a Norwegian official to falsify a captain’s license for his yacht, but spent only 25 days behind bars. In 2017, with his net worth hovering around $2.5 billion, Røkke signed The Giving Pledge, joining Bill Gates and Warren Buffett in promising to donate the majority of their wealth. According to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index, Rokke’s net worth was estimated at $6.89 billion the day that he started the race on March 8. By the time he crossed the finish line on March 16, it had jumped to $7.56 billion.
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In 2022, Aker ASA became one of the largest private industrial employers in Norway, and Røkke moved to Switzerland, seemingly to avoid a wealth tax. He appeared in the recently released Epstein files in an FBI tip along with several prominent Norwegians. He’s currently building the world’s largest superyacht, a 639-foot boat that would double as a research facility with a mission to “improve the health of the ocean.” Meanwhile, Aker BP is drilling for oil at sea, and Aker QRILL sucks krill out of the Antarctic Ocean with a proprietary vacuum-like machine at alarmingly high rates. This krill is then sold to salmon farmers; when farmed salmon eat it, the fish turn bright-red, a color usually only found on wild salmon. This krill is also sold as a high-nutrient product for mushing dogs. Holmes, with a smile, said that his dogs use Røkke’s brand. “Guess I won’t get that sponsor.”
Røkke said that he’s aware of the criticism. “I mean that’s just life in general. That’s good, we all need to be criticized and questioned.… it’s almost a compliment that people are questioning it.” Røkke said that his goal was to complete the course in six and half days, and when he realized that he couldn’t do that, he aimed for eight. “I know we’re doing the right thing. The right reasons,” said Røkke. “We are bringing money to the sport, bringing money to the villages.” He said that the final stretch of the race gave him the same feeling that he had originally coming to Dutch Harbor as a fisherman. “In my heart is America,” he said. “Really, Alaska, too.”
KattiJo Deeter, an Iditarod musher, said that Røkke disrespected the race by buying his way in. Competing, she said, is the reward for years of hard work that goes into building a dog team. Holmes, for instance, trained his dogs over the winter by running them around 4,500 miles. Hugh Neff, another Iditarod finisher, said that mushing is about dogs and humans becoming one spirit, and he wondered if Røkke had felt that connection. At the start of the race, Røkke admitted that he wasn’t “necessarily a dog person.”
Another expedition class musher, Canadian investor Steve Curtis, donated $50,000 to support village youth sports to join the race. He only made it halfway down the trail before quitting. “Those that challenge the dilution of the integrity of the race,” Urbach said of the creation of the expedition class, “I think it is a pretty shortsighted view.” Around 25,000 people have summited Mount Everest, he said, but “there’s only 841 humans that have done the Iditarod Trail.”
Iditarod’s rules forbid competitors from speaking poorly of the race, and those that do can be barred from future events and funding. Without the money from Iditarod, it is nearly impossible for mushers to afford their kennels. “If I was a billionaire,” said Jason Mackey, 10-time Iditarod finisher, “we would be racing for millions of dollars, not just a $100,000 added to the purse.”
But many mushers, including Holmes and Deeter, still expressed gratitude towards Røkke for the decreased entry fees. Around $100,000 of Røkke’s $300,000 payment went to increasing the race purse, which is split amongst all official participants. About $75,000 helped reduce the entry fees. The largest chunk—around $170,000—is set to be divided equally between the 17 villages along the race’s route for children’s dental care.
The final $25,000 went directly to the Iditarod Trail Committee, a nonprofit organization that operates the race. Last year they reported a net loss of $146,753. The year before, the committee posted a net loss of $660,739. As CEO, Urbach brings in more than $200,000.
Libby Riddles, the first woman to ever win the Iditarod in 1985, agrees the race needs to find new ways to survive. The Alaskan mushing community, she said, should be thankful that Røkke brought his ideas, team, and money to the Iditarod—especially when he could have done something similar in Norway, where mushing is also very popular. “He’s done a lot to help the race,” said Josi Shelley, 2025 rookie of the year. “It might open up the opportunity for people who don’t want to run the race competitively to see that this is how you could do it.”
What price is the Iditarod willing to sell itself for? Urbach deflected the question, saying they were still figuring out the details of the new expedition program. “Watching billionaires go down the trail rotating dogs, disrespecting the integrity that this race was founded upon,” said Holmes. “That’s not the way to inspire more people to run.”
Colin WarrenColin Warren is 2025 Puffin student writing fellow focusing on climate and rural issues for The Nation. He is a senior climate scholar at University of Alaska at University of Alaska, Fairbanks, serving as editor in chief of the school newspaper, The Sun Star. His work also appears in The Nome Nugget, Copper River Record, and The McCarthy Canards, among others.