February 26, 2026, Seward Folly
The 2026 Iditarod starts March 7 with three Seward area mushers on the start line: veteran Travis Beals, who took 6th place last year, and two rookies, Sadie Lindquist and Sam Paperman. Lindquist will be running a rookie team from Seavey’s, and Paperman is running a team from Beals’ lot.
Paperman in Bethel at the Kusko 300
At 22, Paperman will be the youngest runner in the Iditarod this year. He became a handler with Turning Heads Kennel in 2018 at the age of 14 and started running dogs.
“I grew up next to Travis. I loved hanging out there. He gave me my first dog, Tank, when I was five. At 14, I started to work for him.” Asked why he’s stuck with the sport, he says, “ It’s addicting, hard to explain, but very cool to have 16 dogs trust you to run 1000 miles together.”Dog mushing has become a central part of his life.
Outside of mushing, the Seward High School graduate is a heavy power technician and marine engineer, working throughout the state. He’s now working shifts on the RV Sikuliaq, the research vessel based out of Seward. He’s also an EMT volunteer with the Bear Creek Volunteer Fire Department. For a young man, Paperman has lived a full life since graduating high school. Last winter he jumped off the boat in Micronesia on a shift change and flew to Japan for two weeks of backcountry skiing.
In April, Paperman ran the Kobuk 440, one of the toughest races in Alaska. He and Lindquist ran parts of the race together, including pushing through and eventually camping in the middle of a major blizzard out of Ambler. Sam wrote about the experience, giving the reader a feel for running a dog team through the remote wilds of Alaska in a storm:
“About 20 miles into the run to Ambler I came around a bend on the river, and it was a crazy windstorm. For a while there was still a trail and I was hiding behind my handlebar to not become a sail in the oncoming headwinds.
“But after around 20 or 30 minutes of it, the trail disappeared, and I had to switch around a couple of leaders and walk at the front of the team and lead them for around 30 minutes until we got into the trees. Keep in mind, Sadie was only about 500 feet, if that, in front of me, and I had no trail, that’s how much snow was blowing around.”
“I ended up taking the lead from Jim and Sadie. Right when I started leading, there was a herd of caribou crossing the trail, and my leader, Tsunami, kept trying to pull the team off the trail and chase them.”
“After that the weather just got worse and worse. The trail was super spotty …. the wind drifts were difficult and confusing for the dogs. I probably had to go up to the leaders 20 times that night to untangle them, then go back to the sled and do it all over again. I fell on my face multiple times because of the deep snow.”
As for this year’s Iditarod, Paperman explained that his plan is less structured than Lindquist’s, with 4- to 6-hour runs, followed by 5 hours of rest, not pushing the young team too much. Running the younger teams at an easier pace is proving ground for Beals’ and Seavey’s lots. These lots can be massive. Seavey has somewhere in the 200-dog range, and Beals has 55 to 60 dogs.
If the dogs do well on this race, they’ll eventually be placed up to the A teams, where they can be pushed in subsequent years. Sled dogs are at their prime from ages 3 to 7, but there’s a 14-year-old dog, Lily, running on another team in this year’s race.
“I’ll see how the team will do, feel it out. I feel confident with them.”
Asked if Paperman has a favorite dog, he says of course, but he can’t show that. His favorites are the shyer dogs, explaining that they’re more tuned to him and less distracted. “It takes a while to earn their trust, but once you do, it’s really good.”
Asked about what concerns he has about the epic race, Paperman is predictably nonchalant. He admits that the Dalzell Gorge is a challenge, but “I’m not afraid of the driving of the team.” Other areas include: “Finger Lakes step coming off Rainy Pass, can be brutal coming off those hills,” and, of course, the Farewell Burn can be tough with a lack of snow.
Paperman ended the interview, explaining he was heading out for a training run. It was getting dark, the wind was blowing on a cold evening – a perfect evening for the dogs.
Link to Sam’s Gofundme page:
Fundraiser for Sam Paperman by Sarah McManus : Sam & The Sled Dogs: Iditarod Bound!!
Check out the related article from last week on Sadie:
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