“The Last Great Race,” for sled dogs and mushers officially takes off tomorrow in Willow, Alaska! Ceremonial Festivities began in Anchorage today – but not without help from 7 train cars of snow brought in from points North! Although it’s not the first time this has happened, it’s still hard for us in the lower 48 to believe there isn’t enough snow in Anchorage to create a sled dog track for a race around the city streets in March!  (This is our favorite Iditarod artwork, showing several of the many different breeds of dogs that can be sled dogs – by Jon van Zyle.)

Once it officially starts tomorrow, mushers will traverse over 1,000 miles of beautiful but treacherous terrain, across mountain ranges and frozen rivers, through forests and around windy coastal areas all trying to get to Nome, Alaska first! Temperatures are often far below zero and ferocious winds blow snow so hard dogs and racers can hardly see.

The historic race is run in memory of the first sled dog relay from Nenana to Nome in 1925. Mushers back then sped to rescue of the children of Nome who were suffering from diphtheria, a debilitating disease that required a special serum (medicine) that was stuck at the end of the train line in Nenana, AK. The weather was so bad, planes couldn’t fly. Sled dogs were the only answer. Dozens of courageous mushers and their hearty sled dogs formed a race, from one relay station to the next, racing to get the medicine to the children as soon as possible through weather and on trails that made it as treacherous as it has ever been since. Luckily, there is no diphtheria anymore, but it still takes as much courage and stamina by both racers and sled dogs as it did then.

Led the first sled dog relay from Nenana to Nome, AK

The sled dog leader of the final relay team was one most of us, by now, are familiar with. He name was BALTO. In honor of the heroic Balto, there’s a statue in Central Park, NY, an animated movie (on DVD now) called BALTO, by Disney, and lots of books and stories about him. Of course, ALL the dogs and their mushers were heroes!       Check our website www.Kidoodlepets.com for more stories about the Iditarod in past years. Check back with this blog for more about the race this year. Or check out these websites for interesting stories about the racers and the dogs. www.Iditarod.org; www.AlaskaTrekker.com and go to teacher Laura Wright’s www.ITCTeacherOnTheTrail.com site, scroll down and learn about the Vet Checks the sled dogs went through a couple days ago, to be cleared to run in this year’s race! More to come. And the race begins in about 24 hours!