A BIG HEART: MEET TRAIL ANGEL JOANNA WASSILLIE

An important milestone for our ITI1000 racers is the village of White Mountain, 77 miles East from Nome. The last checkpoint before Safety and its final stretch of the race, it is a restorative stop that matters for competitive athletes.

For many of our racers, it is also a special checkpoint because of Trail Angel Joanna Wassillie.

Joanna has been hosting racers at her house in White Mountain for well over 10 years, after she found Italian runner Marco Berni limping in the Blueberry Hills, not too far from her home on the Bering Coast in White Mountain, back in 2006. She invited him into her home to recover.

From that year on, Joanna has welcomed racers with an open heart, baking bread at 10pm so there’s good food ready for nocturnal racers arriving, and regaling them with hearty caribou soup.

You will often find Joanna standing on the hills above White Mountain scanning the horizon with binoculars, looking for racers approaching on the Iditarod Trail.

Joanna treats everyone like family, taking pictures of the racers at her house and as they depart to reassure families who have been following the moving dots anxiously for weeks.

Her generosity means a lot to our ITI family, and racers from all over the world have been the recipient of her kindness and caring nature.

Her welcome extends to all adventurers passing by White Mountain and it is immortalised in a book called Little Run Around the World by the revered British author, extreme adventurer and ultra athlete Rosie Swale-Pope, MBE.

The author, who met Joanna on her famous run around the world in December 2005, captured the words of encouragement that Joanna gave her as the ultra runner was leaving White Mountain:

“ Rosie, when you look at the stars, just think that these stars are the same ones that we see, and that we think of you. That way, you will always know that you are never alone”.

Those words sum up the kindness of our Trail Angel, who, despite the challenging events unravelling this week is maintaining her house open to our racers.

Joanna, your welcome has never meant more to the entire ITI family than this week and we are truly grateful for your generosity.

Trail Angel Joanna Wassillie, looking out for the racers.