Norwegian Iditarod rookie Kjell Inge Røkke

New ‘spirit of the Iditarod’

Got a few hundred thousand dollars lying around that you’d like to spend? If so, the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race has a deal for you.

Welcome to the Iditarod “Expedition Musher” club unveiled today with the promise of welcoming “distinguished individuals from around the world to race the iconic Iditarod while promoting the race’s values of endurance, cultural heritage, and respect for the Arctic environment.”

So far, it has only one member: 66-year-old Norwegian billionaire Kjell Inge Røkke.

According to an Iditarod media statement, he has ponied up $295,000 to be helped to make the 1,000-mile journey across the frozen heart of Alaska from Willow to Nome next March, and the buy-in is going to have grown by then.

“As part of his ambassador role, Mr. Røkke has pledged substantial philanthropic support,” the Iditarod said in that statement. This included “$2,000 for each official musher registered by November 28, 2025.”

Forty registered last year, though some later withdrew. Forty again this year would bring Røkke’s Iditarod total purchase price to $375,000. The Iditarod did not say whether he gets a refund if mushers withdraw.

It did say $170,000 is earmarked for “community support for the 17 Alaska Native villages along the Northern and Southern Routes.” It offered no information on how that money will be distributed.

The 17 villages along the route range in size from Takota with a population of less than 50 to Unalkaleet with a population of about 700. The Iditarod checkpoints south of the Alaska Range mountains – Yentna Station, Skwentna, Finger Lake and Rainy Pass – are apparenlty out of luck on this deal because, technically, they are not Alaska Native villages.

And who knows how the village support gets restructured if the Iditarod next year decides the trail is too rough for mushers and once again moves the restart from Willow to Fairbanks, which cuts out the villages of McGrath, Takota and, depending on how the race is routed, Shageluk, Anvik and Grayling.

Kjell Inge Røkke with a dog team on the Yukon River earlier this year

Been there

Røkke is no stranger to the Iditarod’s newly adopted, mountain-avoiding, Interior rivers route from Fairbanks to Nome. He was on that route last year with a support crew of at least either others who hauled equipment and set up camps.

Røkke was reported to have even brought along a chef along on that outing, which it appeared was being guided by Joar Lief Ulsom, the winner of the 2018 Iditarod.

Why Røkke has cut a deal with Iditarod for an officially sanctioned run on the trail next year is unclear. The Iditarod National Historic Trail is a public trail, and there is no requirement anyone sign in with Iditarod to take a dog team north on that trail to Nome.

Iditarod did not say why it set up an “Expedition Musher” program, but Røkke could be angling for the coveted Iditarod belt buckle available only to “official” Iditarod finishers.

“A lot of people don’t really know the history of the Belt Buckle everyone that has run the race wears with pride,” according to the Iditarod website. “The Buckle is sometimes known as the $20,000 buckle. Most mushers who have earned this coveted item wear it all the time.  There are certain unspoken rules among the mushers, and one of them is that no one but a musher who ran the race can wear this buckle.”

Some bragging rights come along with this buckle.

Far fewer people have managed to get a dog team to Anchorage to Nome on the Iditarod than have reached the summit of Mount Everest, the world’s tallest mountain, and with three companies – SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic – now offering flights to outer space, it probably won’t be long before more people have been shot into space than have successfully made it from Anchorage to Nome behind a dog team.

If Røkke reaches Nome next March and is awarded a belt buckle, he will not only be able to claim himself an “official” Iditarod finisher, he’ll be able to claim the most expensive Iditarod belt buckle ever.

As a financial benefactor for the race, he appears to have already surpassed the late Mary Lou Whitney, a New York multi-millionaire who poured money into Iditarod coffers in the 1990s and for a time helped support the dog teams of four-time Iditarod champ Martin Buser from Big Lake. 

As part of the Røkke deal, Iditarod said it is also getting “$100,000 to increase the 2026 race purse to $650,000,” and another $25,000 for “direct financial support to the Iditarod Trail Committee.”

Boosting the purse immediately won Røkke support among the key Iditarod contenders competing for money. And there seems no downside to the deal for the Iditarod, which in recent years has worried heavily about getting the race over quickly so as to minimize the high costs associated with staging the event.

The race appears to have been indemnified against any Røkke costs, given that he is bringing “his own dog team, veterinarian and support personnel, all operating under Iditarod’s kennel and humane care standards.”

It is unclear whether Rokke keeps a kennel in Norway, where he is reported to be invested in a 36-square-mile, luxury hunting estate that would provide enough room for a kennel. But if not, it’s easy enough to lease or buy a dog team with which to run Iditarod if one has enough money.

And with enough snowmachines, veterinarians and support personnel along to lead the way on the trail to Nome, not to mention care for the dogs, pretty much anyone with the ability to stand on the runners of a dogsled without falling off can make it to the Iditarod finish line.

The problems come for people who try to do it on their own under pressure to “race.”

There are no indications that Iditarod plans to saddle Røkke with “back-of-the-pack” Iditarod determinations as to “competitiveness” which are now used to sack Iditarod competitors moving too slowly along the trail in the view of Iditarod race managers.

Who among the race officials would dare to tell the Iditarod’s first billionaire musher that he is going too slow and needs to pack it up and go home after he paid more than $300,000 to get in?

And especially when the Grizzly Bulls website describes Røkke as “a Norwegian billionaire known for his rise from a fisherman to a ruthless corporate raider and industrial magnate.”

Who knows what a Viking with that sort of reputation might do if crossed.

It should be noted that Røkke’s fortune traces back to before the American Fisheries Act of 1998, which as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration now describes it, “established sector allocations in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands pollock fishery, determined eligible vessels and processors, (and) allowed the formation of cooperatives, in addition to other requirements.”

Prior to that act, Seattle-based American Seafoods, a company Røkke founded, used the 1983 proclamation of the American 200-mile limit to leverage federal loan guarantees that allowed the company to replace Japanese fishing interests and grow into the major pollock trawling business in Alaska’s Bering Sea.

That lasted until 1998 when the late-Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens introduced legislation aimed at Americanizing fisheries in the 200-mile, exclusive economic zone (EEZ) off the Alaska coast.

Aker ASA, a company Røkke took over in 1996, in 2020 started the QRILL Pet Arctic World Series through its Aker Biomarine subsidiary in part to sell dog food and in part because Røkke likes to ride the runners of a dog sled now and then and  has become a fan of sled-dog racing.

The series was described as an effort to team “up with some of the world’s greatest sled dog events, The Iditarod (Alaska), John Beargrease Sleddog Marathon (Minnesota), Femundløpet (Norway) and Volga Quest (Russia)” to “bring the excitement, joy and extreme performance from the most exotic arctic dog mushing races to a worldwide audience.”

The World Series appears to have ended with barely a notice in 2022. The QRILL Paws website for the Pet World Arctic Series now shows 2020 as the last year it paid any attention to Iditarod.

A QRILL PET post defining 2024 as “The Year That Reshaped Our World” makes no mention of Iditarod and instead focuses on “exciting pet food events in Italy, China, and Germany” and “a brand-new whitepaper that shed light on the sustainability of the Antarctic krill fishery….

“The findings were eye-opening. The whitepaper revealed the strict regulations and catch limits in place to ensure the sustainability of the krill fishery, as well as the collaborative research efforts driving responsible harvesting practices. It became clear that a well-managed, sustainable krill fishery is not only possible but essential for the region’s future.”

QRILL PET is in the business of selling krill-fortified pet food. The company, like it or not, appears to have realized that while sled dogs in Alaska number in the tens of thousands, pets elsewhere number in the tens of millions or billions.

“We…made our debut in the Indian market at the India International Pet Trade Fair in Mumbai,” last year’s post said. “Atul Barmann, our Director of QRILL Pet India, and Anagha Mehta, our Business Development Manager, were there to connect with key play the world’s fastest-growing pet markets.”

They’ll probably sell more dog food than six-time Iditarod champ Dallas Seavey, a one-time member of a QRILL Pet Mushing Team, ever did. That mushing team now also appears to have gone out of business.

Editor’s note: This is an updated version of the original story. It added some reporting on Røkke’s Iditarod run this March and his history in the Alaska pollock fishery.