PERHAM, Minn.

— Most people couldn’t imagine traveling 1,000 miles across Alaska mid-winter in modern gear, let alone with only vintage gear. Lance Woods of Dent, however, isn’t most people. At the end of this month, he will be traveling across the Iditarod trail only using equipment made in 1973 or earlier. While this will be his fourth time on the Iditarod, this will be his first time doing so with vintage gear.

“It’s just a challenging trail,” Woods said when asked what originally gave him the idea. “There’s going to be a lot of bad days. But there will be some good days too, and those are the ones you remember … just the scenery and the weather and the serenity.”

Some of the gear Woods will be taking with him on his journey includes a 1973 Ski-Doo Elan snowmobile, a 1948 British arctic mountain tent, a 1950s U.S. military casualty bag for sleeping, 1936 Swedish arctic books, a 1904 Stonebridge candle lantern, a 1972 Coleman single burner stove, 1944 snowshoes and more.

Preparing for the trip has taken Woods about two years. He purchased a lot of equipment on eBay and jokes that a lot of “Google hours” went into the project, as just searching for all his vintage gear took quite a lot of digging.

On top of the searching and purchasing, he had to almost completely rebuild the 1973 Ski-Doo Elan, which is the snowmobile he will be riding on the trail. A lot of the parts were worn out when he received the vehicle, so he had to put in numerous hours of searching for parts to ensure the snowmobile would run. He even rebuilt a 1972 Coleman single-burner stove to guarantee it was in top-notch condition.

“It’s actually good gear,” Woods said. “It’s just heavy and bulky compared to the state-of-the-art new stuff.” While he takes to the trail, a lot of the gear will be secured to a sled, which he will pull behind his snowmobile.

Though he’s a bit worried about the trip not panning out after so much planning, Woods is also no stranger to long-distance travel. With three successful Iditarod trips already under his belt — one on skis and two on snowmobile — one of his longest trips makes the famous Alaskan trail look short.

He once rode his motorcycle from the northern tip of Alaska to the very bottom of Argentina. Put together, that’s about 15,000 miles of travel for a single motorcycle trip. And he’s been on many more journeys in his time.

Throughout the years and the many memories made, there’s one story from the time he skied the Iditarod trail that sticks out to him. There was a day when the weather started to warm up for a bit. Though it was snowing at first, that snow quickly turned to rain. He had a high-tech tent that was supposed to be state-of-the-art, but it turned out to be the complete opposite.

“It leaked like a sieve,” Woods recalled. “It rained for two days, and then it turned 20 below. You step out of your tent even with your skis on, and you’re up to your waist. You’re just stranded; you can’t go anywhere until the trail breakers came through. So you lay in this depression because the snow is melting under you and all the water just absorbs in that depression into your sleeping bag.”

On the fifth day, he was finally able to start skiing again, but he was cold beyond belief.

He continued, “I started seeing parking lots and church steeples and hallucinating … (The temperature) went right down from 35 above to 40 below or 20 below.”

Despite that scary experience, Woods was never deterred from returning to the Iditarod. And now, he’s prepped to head out on his vintage journey.

When asked what people have said when he’s told them about his plans, Woods simply laughed and said, “crazy.” But he quickly added, “You’ve got to follow your passions.”

To follow Lance Woods on his journey through Alaska, check out his Facebook page, ”

All Vintage Trans Alaska Sno Go Expedition

.” He will head out on Tuesday, Feb. 27, and if successful, the journey will take about two weeks.

“I’ve just got a passion for the Arctic,” Woods said when asked what keeps bringing him back to the Iditarod. “It’s the challenge and that one day that’s absolutely perfect. Like, there’s no better place in the world to be.”

Elizabeth (she/her), 25, graduated with a degree in Journalism and Communications from the University of Wisconsin–Stout in 2020. Elizabeth has always had a passion for telling stories about people and specializes in community features, which she uses for her Perham-centered content.