Posted on 03/15/2019 1:17:01 PM PDT by Morgana
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Growing up in California, I first fell in love with mushing through a picture book about Balto, the famous Siberian husky. The true storywhich I turned to again and againbegan in January 1925. Children in the village of Nome were dying of diphtheria, and with every attempt to deliver supplies of antitoxin in the thick of an Alaskan winterby plane, by trainending in failure, an epidemic seemed imminent. With the community growing increasingly desperate, the local trappers proposed a far-fetched solution: a sled dog relay to mush the medicine from camp to camp. And though many dogsand many humansplayed heroic parts in the relay (a dog named Togo led his team through the toughest and longest stretch of trail), it was Balto, the lead dog, who ran the final stretch to Nome.
The medicine arrived safely. The children were saved. And dogsleddinga niche mode of transportation throughout the frozen Northimmediately became part of the public imagination. When I finished the book, I turned back to the first page.
More than 40 years later, the 1,000-mile Iditarod race was created, in part, to memorialize the relay and to preserve the tradition of long-distance dogsledding in a culture fast turning to snowmobiles for winter transportation. But who, I wondered, would want to drive a machine when you could travel by dogsled?
(Excerpt) Read more at vogue.com ...
This is an article about the 5 women mushers in the current Iditarod.
alaska ping
Lots of whiskey?
Huskies are so darned beautiful. And I cannot imagine a team of dogs so faithful that they’d trek 1k miles with you. (They evidently revolted on the Frenchman, but who wouldn’t?) (Admission, I’m a Cajun frog.)
bookmark
Women mushers have done well this year - 3 finished in the top 7, 5 in top 20!
FINISHED:
3 - Jessie Royer
4 - Aliy Zirkle
7 - Paige Drobny
16 - Kristy Berington
17 - Anna Berington
STILL RACING:
32 - Jessica Klejka: out of White Mountain today, on her way to Safety (55 mile run). From Safety, it’s 22 miles to the finish at Nome
33 - Sarah Stokey - on her way to White Mountain as of yesterday
35 - Alison Lifka: out of Koyuk today. She’s still got a ways to go with a 48 mile run to Elim, 46 miles to White Mountain, then 55 to Safety & 22 to Nome.
36 - Kristin Bacon: also out of Koyuk today.
37 - Anja Radano - on the way to Elim
38 - Blair Braverman - in to Koyuk today
39 - Victoria Hardwick - in to Koyuk today
41 - Cindy Gallea - in to Koyuk today. Cindy is the “Red Lantern” .... last musher in the field still racing.
A few minutes ago I opened a package from Alaska. A friend just
moved to a village in the Alaskan interior. The village is an Iditarod checkpoint. They sent me an official Iditarod Volunteer hat and a race used dog bootie.
Do you mind saying which village?
McGrath
McGrath is a “happening” place! This is a major Iron Dog checkpoint too, so they get lots of activity there between the two races.
What a wonderful package to receive :-)
Im pretty pumped. I had one a finisher gave me several years ago and lost it.
If you could find out which musher, there are lots of great pics of the mushers/teams on the Iditarod site - the start, in articles, etc. You could print off a picture of that musher/team & then frame it with the bootie in a shadowbox sort of frame.
If you can’t find out who the musher is, you could use something like the Iditarod ‘mystic dog’ image instead - very dramatic (I love it - beautiful eyes on that dog).
https://iditarodstore.com/2019-collection.html
Ahhh volunteer goodies. I lived in AK from ‘91-’96. Still have my Volunteer Sweatshirts from ‘92-96. Other stuff except for pins long lost thru time.
In ‘the 95 or 6 race DeeDee Jonrowe wanted to keep her sled weight minimal so did not bring a firearm.
Middle of nowhere she rounds a bend to confront a Bull Moose.
Now, Moose do not discriminate between wolf and dog. It got ugly.
Some minutes behind her Jeff King (if memory serves) rounds the bend, pulls out his revolver and shoots the Moose dead.
Longer story short.
BTW - its 1049 miles vs 1000. officially and over 1100 in reality.
Ceremonial start in Anchorage and official start in Wasilla - I hear it changed to Willow some time after I left.
We used to fly out to the checkpoints and follow the trail with mushers down below.
Huskies & Alaska sled dogs are separate and distinct breeds.
And yes, they are all very beautiful and special.
Somewhere in my box o stuff, I also have an unused supply bag marked for the village of Safety.
I’m probably one of fifteen people in the state of Maryland who even knows what the Iditarod is.
Thank You for the post and ping Morgana.
Woot! Alaskan Strong Ladies!
Cindy said this was her last Iditarod ..... a lot of folks think it may not be as long as she has dogs or access to a team. Anyway, sad news that she had to scratch & SO close to Nome (22 miles), but the dogs are always priority #1:
Iditarod Trail Committee
2 mins ·
We are reporting this news: Cindy Gallea scratches at Safety checkpoint
Anchorage, Alaska Veteran Iditarod musher Cindy Gallea (bib #53) of Wykoff, Minn., scratched at 12:00 a.m. this morning at the Safety checkpoint.
Gallea made the decision to scratch in the best interest of her race team, which is her No. 1 priority.
Gallea had seven dogs in harness at the time she made the decision to scratch.
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