Kirk Barnum, 43, was born and raised in California. He began mushing in 1995, and in 1999, he moved to Montana to run dogs. Last year he moved to Grangeville for “good trails and good fishing.” He says that after racing some good mushers in Wyoming, I wanted to run the Iditarod.” “I like to raise my on dogs and continue to breed my own strains. Each year I have better dogs to plug into my core. I enjoy the Iditarod because of the great dog teams that run annually and the remote villages and the Alaskan outdoors we travel through on the race course.” Kirk studied forestry at Utah State and worked as a forester for twenty years. He now lists his occupation as “dog servant” and his hobbies as music, bears, fishing, wildlife and Dutch oven cooking.