AliyZirkle, right, greets fans at the finish line of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, Tuesday, March 15,  2016, in Nome, Alaska. Zirkle finished third. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)

AliyZirkle, right, greets fans at the finish line of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, Tuesday, March 15, 2016, in Nome, Alaska. Zirkle finished third. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)

Musher places 3rd in Iditarod after being attacked on trail

  • By Mark Thiessen
  • Tuesday, March 15, 2016 9:53pm
  • News

NOME, Alaska — Musher Aliy Zirkle on Tuesday completed a bittersweet Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race across Alaska, and credited the people of Alaska with helping her pull through a harrowing ride in which she was attacked by a man on a snowmobile.

Zirkle brought her team of 13 dogs down Nome’s Front Street through a boisterous crowd chanting her name Tuesday morning.

It’s Zirkle’s fifth consecutive top five finish.

The attacks on Zirkle and four-time champion Jeff King marred this year’s race across two mountain ranges, down the mighty Yukon River and along the wind-scoured Bering Sea coast. Prosecutors contend the man rammed both mushers’ dog teams or sleds, killing one of King’s dogs and injuring or bruising others on both teams.

An exhausted Zirkle didn’t address the attack directly in post-race interviews. However, she did say this year’s Iditarod was “really hard, physically and emotionally.”

Zirkle said her nature in these situations is to count only on herself and her dogs. But something happened — and then kept happening — after the early Saturday morning attack.

“It’s kind of what I did, and then Alaska like tugged back,” she said. “Every checkpoint I went through, people were so supportive.

“I couldn’t just be with myself. It turned out, I was with everyone,” said Zirkle, who is a favorite of mushing fans.

Zirkle had appeared shaken on a video after the attack telling a race official: “Someone tried to kill me with a snowmachine,” using the Alaska term for snowmobile.

She was attempting to become only the third woman ever to win the nearly thousand-mile race across Alaska and the first since the late Susan Butcher won her fourth title in 1990. Zirkle finished second from 2012-2014, before dropping to fifth place last year.

Zirkle was born in Manchester, New Hampshire, in 1969 and first came to Alaska in 1990, midway through getting a degree in biology from the University of Pennsylvania.

She lived in a wall tent on the Alaska Peninsula, counting birds for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

She went back to college and finished her degree in 1992, and then came right back to Alaska. She and her husband, musher Allen Moore, own a kennel. Both are entered in this year’s race, and he was running in 32nd place.

They built their home in Two Rivers, Alaska, where they hunt moose in the fall.

At the finish line, fans chanted her name, hugged her and she even got a bouquet of roses.

“People are incredibly supportive of me. I guess I better go hold up my end of the bargain,” she said.

More in News

Nikiski graduates view their slideshow during a commencement ceremony at Nikiski/Middle High School in Nikiski, Alaska, on Monday, May 19, 2025. (Jake Dye/Peninsula Clarion)
‘We need to change the world’

Nikiski Middle/High School graduates 31 on Monday.

State Sen. Lyman Hoffman (D-Bethel) exits the Senate Chambers after the Senate on Tuesday, May 20, 2025, adjourns until next January. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Empire)
Alaska Legislature adjourns a day early in ‘smoothest ending in 20 years’ following months of budget battles

Lawmakers speed through final votes on veto override on education funding bill, budget with $1,000 PFD.

Rep. Andi Story (D-Juneau), Rep. Rebecca Himschoot (I-Sitka), and Rep. Sarah Vance (R-Homer) watch the vote tally during a veto override joint session on an education bill Tuesday, May 20, 2025. (Jasz Garrett / Juneau Empire)
Education funding boost stands as lawmakers successfully override Dunleavy veto

Three of the peninsula’s legislators voted to override the veto.

Jeff Dolifka and his children perform the ceremonial ribbon-cutting for the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Kenai Peninsula’s Royce and Melba Roberts Campus in Kenai, Alaska, on Saturday, May 17, 2025. (Jake Dye/Peninsula Clarion)
‘So proud of what we accomplished’

New Boys and Girls Clubs campus dedicated Saturday with a ribbon-cutting and donor recognition.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy speaks to reporters about his decision to veto an education funding bill earlier this session at the Alaska State Capitol on Thursday, April 17, 2025. He vetoed a second such bill on Monday. (Jasz Garrett / Juneau Empire file photo)
Dunleavy vetoes 2nd bill increasing education funding; override vote by legislators likely Tuesday

Bill passed by 48-11 vote — eight more than needed — but same count for override not certain.

Graduate Paxton McKnight speaks during the graduation ceremony at Cook Inlet Academy near Soldotna, Alaska, on Saturday, May 17, 2025. (Jake Dye/Peninsula Clarion)
Beginning a new season of their lives

Cook Inlet Academy graduates seven.

The wreckage of Smokey Bay Air plane N91025 is photographed after residents pulled it from the water before high tide on April 28, 2025, in Nanwalek, Alaska. (Photo courtesy of NTSB)
Preliminary report released on Nanwalek plane crash

The crash killed the pilot and one passenger and left the other passenger seriously injured.

Member Tom Tougas, far right, speaks during a meeting of the Kenai Peninsula Borough Tourism Industry Working Group in Soldotna, Alaska, on Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024. (Jake Dye/Peninsula Clarion)
Tourism working group rejects bed tax, recommends seasonal sales tax adjustment

The document includes a section that says the borough could alternatively leave its tax structure exactly as it is.

The rescued sea otter pup looks at the camera in this undated picture, provided by the Alaska SeaLife Center. (Kaiti Grant/Alaska SeaLife Center)
Stranded otter pup rescued from Homer beach

She is estimated to be around 2 months old and was found alone by concerned beach walkers.

Most Read