This year’s Iditarod begins – and ends – with a burled arch
A new arch is headed for Nome once completed by an Iditarod veteran
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - The 2025 Iditarod sled dog race takes off for Nome on Saturday, March 1.
About a thousand miles later, finishing mushers will drive their dog teams down Front Street in Nome and arrive at the iconic burled arch. Except, there’s a small problem at the moment: There currently is no functional burled arch in Nome, after the most recent arch collapsed into a pile of firewood because of wood rot.
It happens. Wood gets old.
Soon after the former arch’s demise, the Iditarod Trail Committee tapped veteran musher Ramey Smyth to build the new arch. Smyth owns Smyth Logwork, a log home-building business in Willow. He has a lot of experience building with logs.
Now, that experience is being put to the test. It took eight months to find the perfect burled tree to use for the arch, leaving little time to actually build the new one.
That is how Smyth found himself racing even before the Iditarod begins.
He has finished the Iditarod as a musher 27 times, with a dozen of those being in the top 10. He is familiar with the long run.
While the stress is a little different this year, Smyth is used to finishing this race. And this year, his plans to make it happen are no different.
Once the arch is completed, it will be flown to Nome, readied to greet all finishers.
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