Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race
More than 1,000 dogs will line up along Fourth Avenue in Anchorage, Alaska, on Saturday, March 7, 2009, for the 37th Annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.
The Saturday ceremonial start, which begins in Anchorage and ends in Eagle River, Alaska, offers onlookers an opportunity to experience history as they get a close-up view of the teams preparing for the 1,049-mile journey to Nome, Alaska.
After a restart at Wasilla on Sunday, the mushers leave the land of highways and bustling activity and head out on the Iditarod National Historic Trail, towards the western Bering Sea coast. Mushers and their sled dogs will race through mountain ranges and forests, across frozen rivers, vast tundra and along the frigid, windswept coast. They will battle snow and ice, high winds and treacherous overflows deep in the heart of Alaska's wilderness for most of this 1,049-mile course to be the first to get to Nome, Alaska.
If interested in attending the annual Musher's Banquet, find information and tickets from the Iditarod Trail Committee, Inc. at 907-376-5155.
History
During the gold rush era, the Iditarod National Historic Trail was a supply route to mining camps, trading posts and remote bush areas. Mushers carried out most of the $30 million dollars in gold mined in the interior of Alaska. The trail became a lifeline in 1925 when a diphtheria epidemic hit Nome. Twenty mushers and their doges rushed through sub-zero conditions to deliver serum that saved many lives in isolated Nome.
Now, the race is an international event. Finishers come from countries all over the world including, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Great Britain, Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Italy, Japan, Austria, Australia, Sweden and the Soviet Union in addition to mushers from 20 different states.
