Unalakleet Community Serves Sourdough Pancakes to Iditarod Mushers on Alaska Coast

About a week after leaving the Willow start line, Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race teams flooded into the Norton Sound village of Unalakleet with two-thirds of the grueling endurance race behind them. What greeted them was the smell of bacon drifting down from the trail's edge, and a stack of sourdough pancakes made from a starter older than the race itself.

Cherie Larsen was at the Unalakleet Native Corporation's bunkhouse-turned-checkpoint on March 11, 2025 feeding volunteers, race staff, and veterinarians before the first teams arrived, working a 150-year-old sourdough starter into batches of pancakes alongside eggs and bacon. She had a practical reason for cooking early. "When the mushers start coming down the trail, they can always smell the bacon, and that lets them know how close that they are to our stop," she said. For Larsen, the motivation runs deeper than logistics: "I just love to see the people and be a part of something that is bigger than myself. Having the Iditarod come through here is something I don't want to miss."

Larsen's starter is one of many in Unalakleet that get pressed into service when the Iditarod reaches the coast. In homes around town, generations-old starters are supersized with water and flour to produce enough pancakes for every hungry musher and anyone else who wanders in. Locals also bring salmon bakes and casseroles. Peace on Earth, the local pizza shop, delivers pies ordered by fans calling in from outside Alaska, with messages of encouragement written directly onto the boxes.

The checkpoint itself is the Unalakleet Native Corporation bunkhouse, a warm public building attached to the local post office just off the trail. A large flatscreen TV on one wall displays the Iditarod tracker, and the room fills with people around the clock. "Somebody's always here, 24/7. That's the fun part of having a checkpoint in Unalakleet," said a community member named Louisa. "Always something going on, always somebody here, always something to do."

That hospitality has a specific philosophy behind it, rooted in a community member known as Middy, who was active in Unalakleet's search and rescue team and worked with the Norton Sound Sled Dog Club. According to McGinty, Middy was proud of his sourdough and loved serving it to people, and the pancake breakfast was just one of many things that kept him busy. Louisa described his guiding principle plainly: "He never wanted anybody to go hungry. A lot of people come here to watch the first musher to come on the coast, and so there are lots of spectators from the lower 48 or even different parts of Alaska. Kids, even local kids, he said, 'Nope, they're gonna eat. No matter who you were, where you're from, you're gonna eat. You're not gonna go hungry here.'"

Mushers who know the checkpoint seek it out deliberately. A musher named Kelly called Unalakleet one of the more "plush" checkpoints on the trail, citing access to showers and beds that most checkpoints don't offer. He credited the stop with turning his own race around: "Just because of the beds, I ended up staying here 22 hours, rested my team up and finished really well."

For a team arriving at the Alaska coast after roughly 1,000 miles of trail, that combination of sourdough pancakes, a hot shower, and a bed can make the difference between finishing and scratching.