Blair Braverman

Blair Braverman (born May 7, 1988) is an American adventurer, dogsled racer, musher, advice columnist and writer. She raced and completed the 2019 Iditarod, the dogsled race from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska.

In 2016, the Outdoor Industry Association selected Braverman as one of its "Outdoor 30 Under 30" and author Sara Marcus called Braverman a "21st century feminist reincarnation of Jack London."

Early life and education Braverman was born on May 7, 1988, the daughter of research scientist Jana Kay Slater and university professor and author Marc Braverman. She was raised Jewish

At 10, she spent a year in Norway while her father researched the country's comprehensive smoking ban. She returned to Norway for a term in high school as an exchange student in Lillehammer, eventually graduating from Davis High School in 2006. she later attended a Scandinavian folk school in Mortenhals, a traditional one-year trade program, and studied dogsledding and winter survival.

Braverman later earned a Master of Fine Arts in creative nonfiction at the University of Iowa,

Books In 2016, Braverman published Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube, a memoir describing her childhood and early adventures in northern Scandinavia and Alaska.

In the book's blurb, author Sara Marcus called Braverman the "21st-century feminist reincarnation of Jack London" The novel is a wilderness survival story centered on contestants on a reality television program who are abandoned in the backcountry when production collapses. Stranded in an unfamiliar environment, the group must organize themselves, manage limited supplies, and decide how to survive.

Three years later, in 2025, she published the children's book The Day Leap Soared, illustrated by Olivia When.

Essays and journalism Alongside her books, Braverman has written essays and reported pieces about wilderness travel, sled dog racing, and outdoor culture. Her work has appeared in publications including The New York Times, Vogue, Esquire, The Atavist, BuzzFeed News, and Smithsonian, among others.

In 2016, she published the essay "What I've Learned From Having a Trans Partner" in BuzzFeed News, reflecting on relationships and identity within outdoor communities.

Other works In May 2026 Braverman started the storytelling Podcast "What to Carry, What to Burn" where she tells survival stories. The first story (two episodes) on Ada Blackjack had Sarah Marshall as guest and included mentions of handling sled dogs.

Sled dog racing Braverman has worked as a professional dog musher and has operated her own sled dog kennel in Alaska. She was only the second Jewish woman to complete the race.

Braverman appeared on a special episode of Discovery's Naked and Afraid in 2019, an experience she wrote about in detail for Outside. Also in 2019, she was a guest on The Today Show. After her appearance, Harry Smith continued to follow her Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race effort; and the following week he featured a spot about her team, who raised over $100,000 for Alaska public schools during a campaign called #igivearod. The campaign continues to raise funds for causes in rural Alaska each year.

In 2021, she appeared on the New York Times Sway podcast, in which she and host Kara Swisher discussed survival and resilience. Between 2022 and 2026 she was a guest on Sarah Marshalls Podcast "You're Wrong About" for eight times.