Iditarod

The Iditarod Sled Dog Race is held every year on the first weekend in March. You must be at least 18 years old to be in the race. The Iditarod begins in Anchorage and ends in Nome. It is said that the race is 1,049 miles long, but that is because Alaska is the 49th state, and the race is actually about 1,150 miles. There is a ceremonial start in Anchorage on Saturday, where folks who have won a bid to ride in the sled of a musher, ride out of Anchorage to Eagle River, the first checkpoint. They are called “Idita-riders”! There is a lot of media coverage and many visitors speak with mushers and take pictures of them, and their beautiful dogs. This is NOT the official start.



The race has two different routes in the interior. On odd years the race goes south through the villages of Iditarod, Shagaluk, Anvik and Eagle Island. Even years the race travels north through the villages of Cripple, Ruby and Galena. The little native villages enjoy having the teams, volunteers and media spend time in their village. The schools are closed and the children, who have made wonderful drawings for the teams, like to collect autographs from the mushers!



This race is called “The Last Great Race” and commemorates the brave run to deliver the serum to the children who had diphtheria in Nome. The Iditarod is run over part of the trail used by the dog teams that transported the medicine to Nome. Balto was the dog who pulled the sled with the medicine on it into Nome, but Togo was a dog who ran the longest distance through incredible storms and over sea ice. Both should be honored equally for their determination and effort!

On Sunday the actual race begins sending out each team at two minute intervals. This restart usually begins in Wasilla and mushers begin the race with 16 dogs. It is quite exciting to see and hear because the dogs are barking and leaping into the air to begin their journey to Nome. Each musher wears a bib with his/her number of their starting position on it. A group of “dog handler” volunteers help to hold the dogs in the chute until the count down is over. Along the way they must stop for an eight-hour layover on the Yukon River and then in White Mountain checkpoint. They also must stop for a twenty-four hour layover so that the difference in the start times evens out. They are not allowed to finish the race in Nome with less than five dogs on the gangline. They look forward to crossing mountain ranges, weaving down hair-pin turns, going down into a gorge, traveling through a burned out area dodging stumps left by the fire, racing into head winds on rivers, and then facing the storms and strong winds along the Bering Sea. The mushers know they are off on an incredible journey through the beautiful and challenging wilderness of Alaska, with 16 powerful, pounding canine athletes! To just feel a bit of what they experience while out on the Trail, would be a generous gift. The time they spend with their beautiful and courageous dogs in the extreme elements of an incredibly magnificent environment is a vacation like no other! And those dogs….what super stars that are born to run and love every moment. Man and his best friends take on the challenges of a journey using the lifeskills of perseverance, courage, flexibility, effort, problem solving, organization, responsibility, cooperation, patience, caring and even sense of humor, to achieve the goal they have been training for, just a marathoners do. What a run, what a journey and what a ride!