NOME, Alaska — Matthew Failor was in perfect position for another Top 10 finish in the famed Iditarod sled dog race across Alaska.
But the 42-year-old Mansfield native was also in perfect position to help a disconsolate young musher, who saw one of his dogs die about 650 miles into the nearly 1,000-mile race from Anchorage to Nome.
To those who know Failor, there was no real choice for the 2000 St. Peter’s High School graduate, who became an Eagle Scout growing up.
Failor chose to stop and help.
It was an altruistic decision that likely cost him that Top 10 finish.
But it cemented his status among the most unselfish of mushers in the 52-year history of what’s been dubbed “The Last Great Race.”
‘He was very lonely and I wasn’t going to leave him’
It all played out on the morning of March 10, seven days into the race.
Failor left the Kaltag checkpoint around 4:30 a.m. AKDT after resting his dogs for about 6.5 hours.
In his 13th Iditarod, the veteran Failor had provided his 17th-Dog team plenty of rest along the trail. He was hovering just outside the Top 10 with about 350 miles to go. Next stop was 85 miles away at Unalakleet, the gateway to the Bering Sea.
“I felt like we were in a good position, kind of hovering in the Top 10 and leapfrogging groups of mushers. Maybe we were in eighth or ninth place or seventh place. And then the next group of mushers comes in, you find yourself in 11th, 12th or 13th.
“The way it was playing out, it looked like I could have a shot at the Top 10, which was a goal. There’s a lot of stuff that happens where everything is clicking and you’re moving at the right speed and the dogs are healthy, and you say, ‘Yeah, I could maybe even track in the Top Five,'” Failor said.
After leaving Kaltag, he and his dogs were about five miles away from a traditional favorite resting place along the trail called the Old Woman Cabin.
As his team mushed along, the competitive Failor had different racing strategies playing in his mind.
“There were a lot of scenarios that were flying through my head. At the time, when I was approaching Old Woman Cabin, I was thinking about going past (the cabin) and camping on the other side.
“That would have set us up for a more competitive schedule to then go through (the) Unalakleet (checkpoint) and go all the way to (the) Shaktoolik (checkpoint). That would have most definitely put us in the next group with an Amanda Otto (who finished eighth) and Pete Kaiser (who finished ninth), some of those other guys,” Failor said.
“But at the same time, in the back of my mind, the more conservative play would be to stop at Old Woman and then stop at Unalakleet and just kind of keep going, checkpoint to checkpoint, so to speak,” he said.
All of those thoughts changed when he saw 23-year-old Hunter Keefe, in just his second Iditarod, stopped with his team.
“There was a dog team in the middle of the trail. I didn’t know who it was. As you are approaching a team, if they are slower, they have to give the right-of-way to the team behind.
“Once I got up upon him, I realized it was Hunter, and I said, ‘Hey, we’ll just try to pass.’ If there is room, sometimes the trail is real narrow and you have to maybe go another 100 yards and find a safer section to go around.
“He immediately turned around and looked at me and I could tell from his body language that something was wrong.
“He was in tears and obviously saddened and crying.
“And so I put my snow hook in the ground and walked up to him. He said that he just had a dog (George) pass away. He said this was the worst day of his life and that he never, never wanted to mush dogs ever again,” Failor said.
(Listen below to an interview Richland Source city editor Carl Hunnell recorded with Matthew Failor after the 2024 Iditarod.)
“He was pretty scared and so I didn’t say a word. I just gave him a big hug and tried to console him as best I could. I reassured him that it was not his fault.
“We shared a lot of words.
“It’s the worst thing in the world when one of your best friends passes away like that. You feel horrible. It’s never happened to me, although I have been around other mushers that it’s happened to.
“It’s something that nobody wants to have happen, but unfortunately, death is a part of life. There’s all kinds of grieving that needs to take place and you’re in the middle of nowhere.
“And he was very lonely and I wasn’t going to leave him. So we loaded the dog in the sled and I told him, ”We’ll just go straight to Old Woman. We can gather our thoughts and kind of process this and I will stay with you.'”
Failor said the Old Woman Cabin is a “magical, historical” place for Iditarod racers.
When they arrived together at the cabin, Failor again told Keefe he would not leave him.
“If it happened to me, I would not want to be by myself,” he said.
In fact, Failor stayed at the cabin with Keefe for six hours before the two left together at 5:26 p.m. to continue the run to Unalakleet.
The incident refocused Failor’s mind on something more important than the finish line.
“If I was racing and that didn’t happen to me, and I didn’t go by Old Woman, I probably would’ve stayed there for four hours.
“But it was apparent that we didn’t really need to think like that.
“We just needed to do whatever we needed for him and the dogs and ourselves. So we decided that six hours was an appropriate time and then we would mush together to Unalakleet,” he said.
When Keefe got to that next checkpoint, he scratched from the race, becoming the second of three mushers to leave the 2024 Iditarod after the death of a dog.
‘He needed somebody and it just happened to be me’
Modestly, Failor said he did what any musher would have done.
“Racing is important, but human beings are more important. They’re more important than the race, the trail, the dogs, anything. He needed somebody and it just happened to be me,” Failor said.
“I’m just happy that I can help him. He’s a good guy,” he said, adding that rookie mushers Issac Teaford and Calvin Daughterty, both of whom had dogs die during the race, are “really good people, too.”
“They did nothing wrong. Those dogs are checked thoroughly at each checkpoint, and the veterinarians do a fantastic job. I know the race is going to come under a lot of scrutiny because of (the deaths).
“But sometimes a dog will pass away on a walk or if you are running them or taking them to the dog park. Everybody knows about sports and sudden cardiac related deaths … things like this can happen,” Failor said.
“No matter how many (medical) screens you have, no matter how many (testing) things you’re hooked up to and examined medically, there can still be things that happen.”
Failor had been resting his team at Kaltag when Keefe and his dogs left the checkpoint, headed down the trail toward Unalakleet.
“I saw Hunter leave Kaltag. His dogs looked wonderful. They ran right out of there, wagging their tails and trotting along,” he said.
Failor, who along with his wife, Liz, own and operate Alaskan Husky Adventures in Willow, Alaska, not far from where the race began March 3. He is known for his care and love for his dogs.
“Nobody wants a dog to die. Nobody wants anything to die. But a sled dog loves to run. They really do love to run in harness, just like a Labrador loves retrieve a ball.
“And if you take a ball away from a Lab, if you take a harness away from a a sled dog, those dogs are actually unhappy and they’re sad because they’re not getting to do what they love to do.
“So if a dog does die in harness on the Iditarod trail, the one trail they love to run on once a year … I don’t want to say we should all be so lucky, but to die doing what you love to do is one hell of a way to go out.
“And I’m not normalizing death. I’m not saying it’s okay for dogs to die like that. But to die fat and arthritic on a couch or in a kennel while your owner is at work, I wouldn’t want to go that way.
“I’m just saying that if it’s going to happen, that dog went the way it wanted to go because it was doing what it loved to do,” he said.
After arriving in Unalakleet with Keefe, Failor and his team took an eight-hour rest. He then continued on the remaining 261 miles, crossing the finish line in Nome in 10 days, 2 hours and 35 minutes, finishing 13th overall.
‘Best Sportsman on the Trail’ — again
Failor’s humanitarian works were noted at the annual awards banquet in Nome, hosted by the Iditarod Trail Committee.
For the second time in four years, Failor was honored with the Donlin Gold Sportsmanship Award as voted on by Iditarod finishers. It carried a $3,000 cash award and a plaque.
The award was initiated in 1977 by the Alaska Native Brotherhood to honor Native musher Ken Chase. The ANB continued to present the Ken Chase Sportsmanship Award through 1982.
Since then, the award has been presented by the Iditarod Trail Committee, and various other sponsors, to the person chosen by his/her peers as the best sportsman on the trail. In 2015, Donlin Gold began sponsoring the award. The winner receives a $3,000 check and a plaque.
Keefe had written a letter to the ITC nominating Failor for being there when the young musher needed him on the trail.
In his letter, Keefe wrote, “I had the worst day of my mushing career on this Iditarod trail. Luckily, I didn’t have to go through it alone. After taking care of our teams, (Failor) helped me regroup and came up with a plan that included a six-hour camp at Old Woman.
“Please consider (Failor) for the Sportsmanship award for putting aside his race for my team,” Keefe wrote.
Failor admitted he became emotional when accepting the award.
“It’s an emotional thing … when you’re dealing with death and everyone has to deal with that, to internalize that in their own way,” he said.
“I knew I was being nominated. I didn’t know I would win, because there were several other people nominated. So it was really touching to be nominated by your peers and have folks vote for you. It makes you feel good that you’re respected in your community,” Failor said.
Failor, who received the Most Inspirational Musher in 2022 and Most Improved Musher in 2018 and 2023, also received the 2024 Northern Air Cargo Herbie Nayokpuk Memorial Award, chosen by race staff and checkers at the check points.
The award is given to the musher who best emulates “Herbie: The Shishmaref CannonBall” in his or her attitude on the trail.
Nayokpuk, who died in 2006, was an Inupiaq musher who competed in 11 Iditarods, the last in 1988. Known for his cheerful and straight-ahead demeanor, race officials have said “no musher in Iditarod history has been more admired, more respected or better liked than Herbie Nayokpuk.”
For the memorial award, Failor, who earned $20,000 for his 13th-place finish, received $1,049 in “pocket change” inside a Northern Air Cargo jacket and and handmade crafts from the Nayokpuk family.
Failor, who fell in love with the Alaskan culture while interning on the Mendenhall Glacier after earning his degree from The Ohio State University, said it was meaningful earning awards named for the two legendary native mushers.
“If you’re not going to win the race, those are some very prestigious awards. To be honest with you, every musher that gets in (the Iditarod) wants to be competitive and they want to win.
“But it’s how you carry yourself and how you treat your dogs and how you treat other mushers in the race. So it’s really special to be recognized with awards that have the names of Ken Chase and Herbie Nayokpuk,” he said.
“When you hear these stories (about Chase and Nayopuk), you can’t help but think maybe someday I could be regarded like those guys. They do it right, they do it right by their dogs, and they’re not only good dog mushers, but they’re just good people.
“So I’m really humbled and I feel quite honored to be recognized in their names like that. It’s an emotional thing, so just I feel really really happy. And to be honest with you, it’s not just about me, it’s about my family and my crew.
“We’ve really tried to surround ourselves with like-minded people. Casey and Dane, our dog handlers, this is an award that’s for them, too. It’s a whole team effort. And so when I’m recognized, the dogs and the crew and the sponsors and the boosters are all recognized too. So it’s a total team effort,” Failor said.
‘We’re going to pick up some groceries from Costco’
The spotlight of the race ended, Failor was ready to return to the relative calm of the family business near Willow, population 1,956.
What’s first on the agenda?
“We’re going to pick up some groceries from Costco. I think I said that last year, too. Anytime we go to town, we got to get all the stuff — and then head home and immediately get right back to work.
“While we were racing, Dane and Kaci were doing tours every single day and taking care of everything. In a couple of our buildings, the power went out. They they had to fix that. Turn all the oil drip stoves, the heaters back on, and they’re representing our kennel while we’re gone, taking care of everything.”
“So we need to get them some days off. As soon as I get back, we’re going to try and get them some days off so I can get back in and run some tours.”
Alaskan Husky Adventures and the 17th-Dog team will have a competitor in the 2025 Iditarod.
But it may not be Failor, who has spent the last nine months as a new dad while also operating a growing business that offers year-round sled dog dogs and the entire mushing experience.
“We’re not 100 percent sure, but I’m leaning on maybe taking the year off as far as Iditarod.
“It’s not set in stone yet, but I really do want to get Dane Baker, my handler. I want to get him in the Iditarod and I’m pretty sure he’ll be taking a team. We’re not 100 percent sure whether or not I’m going to be taking a team.
“The handlers that stick around our kennel for several years, I want to reward them. It’s Dane’s turn to take a team. He has qualified, he literally did his qualifiers and he’s qualified in general. He is a good person.
“He is a hard worker, loves the dogs, he’s good with them. And so you’re going to see Dane Baker on the trail next year with a young 17th-Dog team, probably comprising of 1-year-olds, 2-year olds, 3-year olds, and a couple old dogs to help him out.
“So for sure Dane, and then maybe a second team with me, and maybe not, I don’t know.
“It depends on if there’s … I’m gonna be a father for sure, you know, but we’ll just see if we can juggle it all.”
