Former Odenville resident wins 2025 Iditarod Dogsled Race
Top Photo: Jessie Holmes, formerly of Odenville, taking part in the Iditarod Dogsled Race, which he won this year.
Photo by Dave Poyzer, online at davepoyzer.com
Story by Roxann Edsall
Submitted photos
A trip by car from Odenville to Boston is 1,159 miles. From Odenville to Tucumcari, New Mexico is just under 1,100 miles. Now imagine a similar distance in the harsh, winter environment in Alaska, but instead of being inside your warm car, you are standing on the footboard of a sled racing through the frozen tundra at 10 to 12 miles per hour.
Alabama native Jessie Holmes knows firsthand the experience, as a musher and veteran racer of long-distance dog sled races.
He won this year’s 1,128-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, the longest Iditarod in the race’s 53-year history. Due to a lack of snowfall along parts of the normal route, the official start of the 2025 race was moved from Willow, Alaska to Fairbanks.
The routing of the race was also altered, a precaution made to protect the safety of the mushers and their dogs, but adding over 100 miles to the grueling journey.
Holmes crossed the finish line in Nome at 2:55 a.m. on March 14, having completed the race in 10 days, 14 hours, 55 minutes and 41 seconds, just a little more than three hours ahead of second place finisher, veteran musher Matt Hall. The win brought with it a check for $57,200.
This was the 8th Iditarod for the 43-year-old Holmes, his strongest Iditarod finish. He placed 3rd in 2024 and in 2022.
Success, for Holmes, has been hard fought. Born in Sylacauga and raised in Phenix City by his mom, Judy Holmes, he admits to running away and getting into trouble a lot. As a teenager, he spent two years living with his father in Odenville and attended St. Clair County High School. Still getting into trouble there, he left school and headed out West hoping to figure things out.
“I was traveling, jumping trains, hitchhiking across the country working odd jobs,” says Holmes. “I settled in Montana for a little while working for a family. Then I headed up north into the Yukon Territory, wanting to be a mountain man.” He ultimately landed in Alaska, where he has thrived living off the grid.
He calls the wilderness the cure for the troubles of his youth. “It was what my soul needed,” admits Holmes. He credits the loving guidance of his grandfather, Gene Richmond, with his love of the wilderness lifestyle. An army veteran of World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, his grandfather lived on Fort Benning, just minutes from his Phenix City home.
As a youngster, Holmes was happy there playing with the chickens and beagles and in the garden. “I was always trying to round up stray dogs everywhere I went and was always getting in trouble for it. I’ve had a strong empathy for animals my whole life,” Holmes says. “If you ran over a turtle, I was in tears.”
From his grandfather, young Jessie learned to hunt, fish, trap, garden and raise dogs, skills he still uses to provide for himself and for his animals. His grandfather has since passed, but his “granny” still lives in Phenix City.
With his human family so far away, Holmes’ describes his dogs as family. And a big family it is. Working with 60 to 70 dogs in his kennel, he breeds, raises and trains dogs for his teams and for other mushers.
He has apprentices who work with him at his homestead and learn about training sled dogs. He still trains his “A-team,” which is about 30 dogs, while his apprentices work with the “B-team” and “C-team” dogs. He’s mentoring these young people just as he was mentored by special people when he first arrived in Alaska.
Holmes gratefully acknowledges the men who took him under their wings. Jerry (Gerald) Riley, the 1976 Iditarod champion, was influential in steering the Alabama transplant through some challenging times. “He kind of adopted me,” says Holmes. “He’s the one that really saw that I could be a champion and convinced me of it. I had kind of a negative perception of myself.”
Riley taught him some important wilderness skills and got him interested in dog breeding and racing. “I learned a lot about race tactics from him, like psyching out your competitors and not letting people play mind games on you. He was a master at race strategy.” Riley never got to see Holmes win the Iditarod, having passed away last fall.
For a few years, Holmes lived in Nenana and had other Iditarod racers as neighbors. 1983 Champion Rick Mackey taught Holmes more on strategy, numbers and dog care. Bill Cotter, whose top finish was 3rd place, became a father figure to him. “All three of them taught me so much,” says Holmes.
“They came from a different era of mushing,” Holmes adds. “They didn’t typically travel all through the night because they didn’t have the high-level headlamps that we have now. All the gear is a lot more high-tech now. When it felt tough for me, I thought about them. I focused on doing this for a bigger reason than myself. I did it for all the people who believed in me and for those mentors that have passed.”
Reality Star
The Iditarod isn’t Holmes’ only claim to fame. When a National Geographic channel series producer was looking for cast members for Life Below Zero, a show about sustenance living in remote villages of the Alaskan wilderness, friends recommended Holmes. He was cast in the show, which ran from 2015 to 2023, and won nine Academy of Television Arts & Sciences prime time Emmy Awards.
“I wasn’t interested in the show at first, but I was paid very well and that gave me the income boost that I needed to be able to do the racing and the lifestyle I wanted,” Holmes explains.
He had already been excelling in mid-length races but hadn’t had the money to put into training and the expenses for the longer races, like the Iditarod. With his earnings from Life Below Zero, he was able to buy better dogs, breed them and increase the quality of his team.
He began training for his first Iditarod, and the show documented and filmed that first attempt and his second year. He was named Rookie of the Year with a 7th place finish in his first attempt in 2018.
“You’re cold, hungry, sleepy,” describes Holmes of the race experience. “You’re excited and, you know, scared. It’s almost every emotion you can imagine, all wrapped up in each day.” There are many dangers on the trail, including frostbite, whiteout conditions, injuries to the musher or the dogs and dangers from wildlife.
In the 2024 race, he ended up breaking his hand defending his dogs from an angry moose. “We kind of came up on it, and it was sleeping on a real narrow technical spot on the trail,” Holmes recalls. “The dogs were just trying to go by, and it tried to stomp some of the dogs in the team. It reared up and stomped towards the dogs and me and the sled. We’d just startled it, and it was using its survival instinct, but I came face-to-face with it and had to punch it in the nose.”
Very real dangers during races also include sleep deprivation and complete exhaustion, even to the point of hallucination. “I’ve only hallucinated once years ago,” says Holmes. “I was in a pretty depleted state. I was along the coast and saw semi-trucks going down the sea ice and going like 60 miles an hour. I was in this crazy state of believing that it was really happening, and I was so irritated that they would let that happen on the race trail. Then there was like a massive white wall about three feet high, and I felt like I had to duck under it, so I threw the sled on the side and ducked underneath it. When I jumped back up and threw the sled upright, I looked back and it wasn’t there.” That experience shook him, and he ended taking a 9th place finish in that year’s Iditarod. Since then, he’s learned to manage his energy and prioritize his health.
His health has been an issue for him the past three years as he recovered from nearly being crushed by a house. In September of 2022, Holmes was helping in the recovery efforts after Typhoon Merbok hit the coastline of Western Alaska nearly destroying the town of Golovin. He and other volunteers were pulling out wet insulation and plywood from under a house and when he pulled his last nail, a portion of the underside of the house collapsed, pinning him beneath. Friends pulled him out and got him to the hospital.
“I broke three ribs and shattered my wrist,” tells Holmes. “That all happened at the peak of training for that year’s Iditarod. I entered that race with a lot of physical problems and basically emaciated at 142 pounds. So, I had a tough time on the trail. I ended up getting 5th that year.
With his health a priority, this year’s race strategy was to catch a one-hour nap each time he had to stop. He planned five-hour rest stops to give himself ample time to get his dogs taken care of and to give them 3½ hours of uninterrupted sleep. After they were put to bed, he made sure his hydration and nutrition needs were met, which left him about an hour of sleep time.
“So, the first thing I do right when I get stopped is to direct them off the trail somewhere,” explains Holmes. “My leaders listen to me, so a few commands, and they’ll park themselves off the trail.”
Having settled the dogs off the trail, he gets a cooker going to melt snow. It takes 3 ½ gallons of boiling water to thaw the meat his dogs will need. Because of the incredible amounts of energy needed for the race, sled dogs needs approximately two pounds of meat at each feeding. Holmes also uses the boiling water to thaw the ointments and massage oils to help each dog with sore muscles and foot abrasions.
“After they’ve gotten their ointments and massage oils, I add the kibble and supplements to their meat,” Holmes adds. “When they’re done, I put their coats on them and get them settled in the straw bed. Then it’s time for me to eat, repack my sled and climb in the straw with them for about an hour of sleep.”
Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race rules mandate three stops along the race route, with one being a 24-hour stop at a major checkpoint and the other two being 8-hour stops. These required stops are designed to ensure that there is ample time for dog care and rest for the musher and his or her team.
It is also where mushers arrange for resupply shipments to be picked up. “I use them mostly for refueling points,” explains Holmes. “I get my straw, fuel for my cooker and my drop bags with supplies that I’ve ordered. I don’t stay in the towns. I camp in the country with my dogs.” That way, he says, he can keep his focus on the race and have fewer distractions.”
Holmes is very proud of all his dogs, particularly the team that won the Iditarod. “It was pretty special to have like that whole 10-dog team that I finished with be those that I bred and raised and have a deep connection to,” he says, adding that he loves them and wants them to succeed like a parent wanting to see his children succeed. “You know they’re not your children, but it’s a very blurred line for me.”
Two months before the start of the Iditarod, Holmes and his team won the Copper Basin 300, a 300-mile race. Then, just three weeks after winning the Iditarod, Holmes won the Kobuk 440. “That was my goal for the season,” says Holmes. “I saw how good the team was, and I knew we were at the peak of our career and had put the work in. To accomplish big goals, you have to set big goals.”
Holmes loves a challenge. “My goal was never to just live the simplest life in the world. It was to thrive in the wilderness,” he says. “I’m just an odd duck up here. I came from Alabama with a dream and a passion, and I pursued it to no end.
“I think it’s our southern heritage, the resilience and toughness that characterizes us from the South. When you’re hitting some terrible adversities, you’ve got to take it one day at a time, even one mile at a time.”
Editor’s Note: A special thank you goes out to Dave Poyzer for working with us to make sure we had the perfect cover shot for this edition. That is an outstanding photo taken in a difficult environment to shoot in. You can find his photos online at davepoyzer.com.
