Alaska Stock Images founder Jeff Schultz has volunteered as the official photographer of the Iditarod trail race for 30 years. In March, teams race from Anchorage to Nome, traveling over 1,150 miles of the most extreme and beautiful terrain in the world.
“It’s certainly a privilege to travel the trail with the mushers and volunteers and chronicle this event in across Alaska in pictures,” said Schultz. He began photographing the Iditarod in 1981, asked by its founder Joe Redington Sr. He donated the resulting photos to the race committee, which then asked him to return the following year as the official photographer, in exchange for travel and lodging costs. This arrangement remains in place today.
Photos taken by Shultz in his capacity as the official Iditarod photographer have been widely circulated. In 2009, one was featured on a United States Postal Service stamp celebrating Alaska’s 50th Anniversary of Statehood. Shultz has also published six books on the race, most recent of which is Iditarod Glory, and licensed Iditarod images to clients ranging from AT&T and Bayer Corp. to Alaska Magazine and the PBS Nature Series.