King Joins Elite Ranks Of Mushers Defending Iditarod Champ Wearing Crown Comfortably

Like his dog team, Jeff King has found his stride.

The 1996 winner of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog race, King is approaching this year’s race with the relaxed, confident attitude of a man who has found success in doing what he loves.

“My dad told me to pick a job you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life,” said King, a plumber, who put down his tools five years ago to make his living full-time as a professional musher.

King confesses that, even this job he loves can feel like work on those mornings when the temperature dips to 30 below and the 80 dogs in his kennel are waiting to be fed and taken for a training run.

But few jobs can offer as much satisfaction.

“It’s like being the coach of a Super Bowl team and you’ve got a play that you’ve practiced all year long. Seeing them make that play perfectly, seeing all that practice pay off and dusting the previous year’s champion halfway through the race - it’s the satisfaction of having everything click,” he said.

A California native, King, 41, came to Alaska for a summer job at Denali National Park and Preserve in 1975. He decided to put his second year of college on hold to spend the winter in Alaska. It was that winter that he stepped onto the runners of a dog sled and was soon hooked.

Home now is a comfortable house that King built on five spruce-covered acres a few miles from the park entrance. He shares it with his wife, artist Donna Gates, and their three daughters - Cali 12, Tessa 10, and Ellen 5.

Life there centers around the girls and the dogs. As King shows a visitor around his dog lot, Ellen - an energetic little girl with a quick smile - gives hugs and pats to her favorites.

There is Lemon, Rhubarb and Kiwi. Sausage, Bacon and Ham. The girls help name the dogs and there is usually a theme, King says.

But the whimsical names stand in contrast to the intensity King brings to the care and training of his dogs and to competitive mushing.

“If there’s one thing I can say that he’s got, it’s this thoroughness about how he does things. He doesn’t miss a beat. He’s really focused,” said Will Forsberg, a fellow musher who has known King for more than 20 years.

King is thoughtful and articulate, with a head for detail. He’s able to recall the race history of each of his many dogs and it’s clear he’s more comfortable talking about them than about himself.

“The thing that continues to amaze me is that, as a group, these dogs naturally have an incredible ability to maintain their health,” he said. “They have not been bred to look or be a certain way, they have evolved and have long lifespans. Kitty, my lead dog, was nine years old when she finished her sixth Iditarod.”

King has a gift for working with the dogs, says Forsberg. “He obviously bonds with them and can understand them and read their abilities right away.”

It is a skill King has honed over thousands of miles of trail and in more than 20 mid- and long-distance races. After placing 28th in his first Iditarod in 1981, he took a 10-year hiatus from the race.

“Money was a big issue. I just didn’t know if I wanted it bad enough to go into debt,” King said.

Instead of the Iditarod, he focused his efforts on the thousand-mile Yukon Quest Sled Dog Race between Fairbanks and Whitehorse, Yukon. With its longer distances between checkpoints, the Quest is, in some respects, a tougher race than the Iditarod.

He went on to win the Quest in 1989, defeating Joe Runyan who had won the Iditarod that year. King took it as a sign.

“I knew the only way that I could have some confidence that I could compete in the Iditarod would be beating the Iditarod champion and not having anyone else able to do it. And that’s exactly how it turned out. He was second and I won,” King said. He and Runyan are the only two mushers ever to win both the Iditarod and the Quest.

King entered the 1991 Iditarod and finished in 12th place. After moving up to sixth in 1992, he and Donna, decided he should focus all of his efforts on mushing.

“Her art career was blossoming enough that I could mush full time,” King said. The extra effort was enough to tip the scales and he went on to win the race in 1993.

After finishing third and seventh in 1994 and 1995, his second win last year gave him a new measure of confidence. He had moved up into the ranks of the Iditarod elite, becoming one of only four mushers ever to win the race more than once.

“I think he’s probably the most successful distance musher of all time. If you look at his win rate for races entered, it’s really starting to rival the dominance that (Susan) Butcher had in her day,” Forsberg said. “I don’t think he’s really gotten his due yet.”