Alaska's last great race

It is cold, oh, so cold, and snow is swirling in the fierce wind. The dogs plod on, their rhythmic panting and the steady shhhhh of the sled runners the only sound. The musher stands on the rear of the sled, his face almost completely covered against the bitter cold, his arm crooked around the handlebar so he can doze without falling off. There's a rest stop a few miles ahead at Kaltag, and the team is making good time. In only an hour or so, he can bed down the dogs and sip a cup of hot chocolate, and grab a few hours of real sleep before hitting the trail that crosses the Nulato Hills on the way to Unalakleet.

Then it's less than 270 miles along Norton Sound to Nome, the end of the trail, the end of the adventure. The musher is one of dozens who started the Iditarod sled dog race from Anchorage to Nome officially to commemorate the contributions of courageous mail carriers through the Alaskan interior but in reality an occasion to pit themselves against the elements, to prove their courage and ingenuity in the face of adversity, and to meet the land on its own terms and to do all three with the company of their dogs.

The Iditarod began in 1967, the centennial celebration year of the purchase of Alaska from Russia. Joe Reddington Sr., the Father of the Iditarod, and history buff Dorothy Page. Reddington wanted to revive sled dog racing and the culture it represented and Page was looking for an event to honor the mushers and the dogs who played a large part in the settlement of the state. The race was patterned after the All-Alaska Sweepstakes races held early in the century.

The new race was named the Iditarod Trail Leonhard Seppala Memorial Race to pay tribute to the musher who carried diphtheria serum to Nome to end the 1925 epidemic among the natives there, and to pay homage to the prospectors who boosted frontier economy by discovering and mining the gold in them thar hills. Seppala was one of about 20 mushers who carried the life- giving packages from Nenana to Nome, but he was the one who ran the last leg of the journey. Iditarod is a small town in the state's interior, taken from the Eskimo word Haiditarod, meaning a far, distant place. Gold was discovered in a creek near the town in 1908, and the great Alaska gold rush was on.

Each year, the Iditarod begins in early March and runs for a bit more than two weeks. The first finishers cover the 1100 miles in about 11-12 days; the last to cross the finish line take about 15- 16 days. The trail is peppered with rest stops where veterinarians check the dogs and mushers leave any dogs that are sick or too tired to continue. Mushers carry limited supplies on their sleds; dog food is flown in to the rest stops by bush pilots. At least two rest stops are mandatory layovers of specific duration, one for eight hours, another for 24 hours.

Temperatures along the trail can run from -40 F to 50 F, and conditions can vary from crisp, clear winter days to blizzards, from snow-covered or icy trails to bare tundra. Wildlife can be a problem; experienced competitor Susan Butcher lost two dogs to a moose that was trapped in a steep-sided portion of the prepared trail and attacked her team.

Once on the trail, dogs settle into a steady trot. The lead dog follows instructions to gee, turn right, or haw, turn left. The team spreads behind the leader in pairs, each with up to 20 dogs. The wheel dogs those closest to the sled are often the heaviest on the team and bear the burden of the load. The swing dogs those directly behind the leader help turn the sled to follow the leader. The team dogs between the swing pair and the wheel dogs provide the steady pace that gets the whole shebang from one checkpoint to the next.

Among the equipment on the sled are a sleeping bag, an ax, snowshoes, dog booties, a headlamp for night running, and a race promotion packet to celebrate the days when mail delivery by dog sled was the chief source of communication in the vast interior of the state.

Race opposition

In 1985, Libby Riddles left Shaktoolik in a blizzard, 229 miles from Nome and the finish line. The other front runners waited out the storm, and Riddles became the first woman to win the Iditarod. However, her victory, followed by four wins by Susan Butcher, signaled the beginning of the end of the honorable race. These two personable and tough women captured the attention of the nation; the publicity drew television coverage and animal rights activists, and the Iditarod is no longer promoted by sponsors or sports reporters as the ultimate challenge for modern pioneers and adventurers.

Sponsors dropped out as the activists, led by the Humane Society of the US, accused mushers and promoters of tolerating cruelty in the raising and training of the dogs and the running of the race itself. The activists cited the culling methods of some mushers (who sometimes clubbed unwanted puppies to death) and the death of two or three dogs on the trail each year. Rather than clean the bad apples out of the barrel, they indicted the whole system as inhumane.

A typical Iditarod race draws about six dozen competitors who must qualify by running a shorter race and attending race meetings. Each of these drivers runs a team of 14-20 dogs, bringing the total number of dogs involved to somewhere between 1000 and 1400. The dogs are all trained for the conditions of the race. They are athletes, and they are subject to the same problems that plague human athletes, problems that can drain their stamina or even cause death.

Any sick or debilitated dog is left at a checkpoint and flown out to Nome to wait for the musher. If a dog sickens on the trail, the musher carries it to the next stop on the sled. Mandatory rest stops provide opportunities for respites from the harsh rigors of the trail.

In spite of the precautions and safety rules built into the Iditarod, the race committee accepted an HSUS representative in hopes of convincing the organization that the race is safe and humane and that the dogs are as eager to participate as the mushers. The activist was successful in getting the committee to tighten the rules further. Then, in 1993 and 1994, several dogs died, some of them from a virus, others from eating spoiled food. (According to one musher, the food had been stored in a warehouse in Anchorage, and an equipment failure had allowed some of it to thaw. Some of the food refroze and was inadvertently included in the shipments to the checkpoints.) Butcher lost part of her team and retired from racing, ABC's Wide World of Sports dropped coverage, and major sponsors pulled out. Iams, the last big promoter of the Iditarod, plans to end its participation after the 1995 race.

There is no doubt that the Iditarod race tests the mettle of man, woman, and dog. It is a challenge in an era when physical trials are all too rare. Those who participate enjoy pushing themselves to the limits and revel in the partnership they build with their dogs. A musher knows his dogs intimately. He learns which dogs have the heart for the big race and which would rather > remain in the kennel. He knows which ones can withstand the rigors of the trail and which ones cannot. He is interested in working with his dogs, not punishing them beyond their endurance.

The HSUS representative has been dropped from the Iditarod committee, but so have the sponsors. This year, the Iditarod results may make it into the sports section, or they may not. Television coverage is highly unlikely. However, the race will likely go on, out of the limelight, as mushers and dogs continue to challenge the elements and recapture the gold rush spirit of yesteryear.