Dick Wilmarth Dick Wilmarth Dick Wilmarth (c.1942 – March 21, 2018) was a miner and trapper from Red Devil, Alaska who won the inaugural Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in 1973 with lead dog "Hotfoot". In a 2001 interview with the Anchorage Daily News, Wilmarth said he saw the 1973 Iditarod as not really a sled dog race but more of a time to enjoy the Alaska wilderness with friends. He assembled a 12-dog team just a few months before the race, obtaining dogs from Native villages on the Kuskokwim River. Thirty-five dog teams started the 1973 race and twenty-two finished. Competing
Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race and forage for food when the ground is thick with snow. As a result, the moose sometimes prefer to use pre-existing trails, causing hazards for the dog teams. In 1985, Susan Butcher lost her chance at becoming the first woman to win the Iditarod when her team made a sharp turn and encountered a pregnant moose. The moose killed two dogs and seriously injured six more in the twenty minutes before Duane "Dewey" Halverson arrived and shot the moose. In 1982, Dick Mackey, Warner Vent, Jerry Austin, and their teams were driven into the forest by a charging moose. Otherwise,