The 40th annual Iditarod begins today, Saturday, March 3, 2012, at 10 a.m., Alaskan Standard Time, in Anchorage. 


The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race is an annual 1,049-mile (1,688 km) sled dog race run in early March from Anchorage to Nome. Mushers and a team of 12-16 dogs, of which at least 6 must be on the towline at the finish line, cover the distance in 9–15 days.[1] The Iditarod began in 1973 as an event to test the best sled dog mushers and teams but evolved into today's highly competitive race. The current fastest winning time record was set in 2011 by John Baker with a time of 8 days, 19 hours, 46 minutes, and 39 seconds.[2]

Teams frequently race through blizzards causing whiteout conditions, sub-zero temperatures and gale-force winds which can cause the wind chill to reach −100 °F (−73 °C). A ceremonial start occurs in the city of Anchorage and is followed by the official restart in Willow, a city in the south central region of the state. The restart was originally in Wasilla, but because of too little snow, the restart was permanently moved to Willow in 2008.[3] The trail runs from Willow up the Rainy Pass of the Alaska Range into the sparsely populated interior, and then along the shore of the Bering Sea, finally reaching Nome in western Alaska. The trail is through a harsh landscape of tundra and spruce forests, over hills and mountain passes, and across rivers. While the start in Anchorage is in the middle of a large urban center, most of the route passes through widely separated towns and villages, and small Athabaskan and Inupiat settlements. The Iditarod is regarded as a symbolic link to the early history of the state and is connected to many traditions commemorating the legacy of dog mushing.

The race is the most popular sporting event in Alaska, and the top mushers and their teams of dogs are local celebrities; this popularity is credited with the resurgence of recreational mushing in the state since the 1970s. While the yearly field of more than fifty mushers and about a thousand dogs is still largely Alaskan, competitors from fourteen countries have completed the event including the Swiss Martin Buser, who became the first international winner in 1992.

The Iditarod received more attention outside of the state after the 1985 victory of Libby Riddles, a long shot who became the first woman to win the race. Susan Butcher became the second woman to win the race and went on to dominate for half a decade. Print and television journalists and crowds of spectators attend the ceremonial start at the intersection of Fourth Avenue and D Street in Anchorage and in smaller numbers at the checkpoints along the trail.
When American explorers and prospectors arrived in the north, they quickly learned from Native Alaskans that sled dog teams were the only way to reliably move goods and people across the frozen landscape. Not by chance, the "Seward to Nome Trail" as the Iditarod was originally called, was first mapped and marked in 1908 by a four-person Alaska_Road_Commission using dog sled teams.

An Alaskan Road Commission crew supported by dog teamshaving two basket sleds and 18 sets of dog harness made spent five days 'trying out dogs' and repacking the outfit ready for the trip..."
Nine months after the route was surveyed, two prospectors made a ‘Christmas Day Strike’ in the Iditarod Mining District, and the last great gold rush was on. Between 1910 and 1912, 10,000 gold seekers came to Alaska's "Inland Empire". In the following years they worked $30 million of gold from the ground.
With the rush, entrepreneurs quickly erected roadhouses and dog barns along the trail at a convenient day's journey apart—about 20 miles—to shelter and feed trail users. Freight shippers, mail haulers and well-to-do passengers relied on dogsleds. Less wealthy foot-travelers used snow shoes and even bicycles.
"Meals were two dollars each, and blankets spread over wild hay on a pole bunk cost another two dollars. High prices for those days, but a cabin in the shadows of Mt. McKinley is a long way from civilization.

New winter mail contracts bypassed the fading town of Iditarod in favor of more direct routes to Nome, and in the winter of 1925, a deadly outbreak of diphtheria struck fear in the hearts of Nome residents. Winter ice had closed the port city from the outside world without enough serum to inoculate its residents. The only plane's engine was frozen. Serum from Anchorage was rushed by train to Nenana and picked up by a sled dog relay. Twenty of Alaska's best mushers and their teams carried the serum 674 miles (1,085 km) from Nenana to Nome, often in blinding blizzard conditions, in just over 127 hours.This was to be one of the final great feats by sled dogs. Within a decade, air transport replaced the sled dog team as the preferred way to ship mail. With downturns in gold mining, most of the roadhouses closed, boom towns emptied, and the Iditarod Trail fell into disuse.

Forest and tundra reclaimed the Iditarod Trail for almost a half a century until Alaskans, led by Joe Redington, Sr., reopened the routes. To draw attention to the role dogs played in Alaska's history, Redington and his friends created an epic sled dog race from Anchorage to Nome following the route of the historic Iditarod Trail. The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race ultimately revived dog mushing in Alaska and around the world. After years of effort by Redington and the Alaska Congressional delegation, the Iditarod was designated as a National_Historic_Trail.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iditarod_Trail_Sled_Dog_Race

To read the story of the sled dog who became a hero in that historic run carrying the deptheria serum to Nome, type this URL into your browser. https://mybloggers.com/timetraveler/balto-most_memorizlized_sled.html