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(The Last Great Race) |
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Researched by Jordan K. |
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Training
The Iditarod training lasts all year. To get ready a racer would have to make sure he/she trained all the dogs that the Iditarod required (about 15 huskies).
Dog Talk
When mushers are on the trail they would say things like “let’s go” which the dogs understand. If mushers say “whoa” in a loud and rough voice the dogs will usually stop, but if they say it soft and quietly the dogs will likely just slow down. Another saying is “hit the trail” which is said when mushers come to a fork in the road and don’t know which way to go so they let the dogs decide. “Easy” is another word to get the dogs to slow down, but “easy” can be used if a dog is barking at something and you want them to stop. Then there are direction words. "Haw" means left and "gee" means right.
Dog Sled Terms
The mushers use their own special words. “Musher” means a person who races in the Iditarod. “Trooper” means dogs that have been in the Iditarod for 2 or more years. “Two-Year-Olds” are dogs that have been in the Iditarod only 2 years before. “Yearlings” are dogs that haven’t been in the Iditarod before and are “rookies”. The dog chain is used to tether a dog. The dog box is a container to put a dog into. A dog truck carries dog boxes around to different places. The lead dog is in front of the team. The point dogs are directly behind the lead dogs.
Tools
Some tools that a musher would use are a harness to hook up the dogs to the sled. A stake out chain tethers a dog to the ground. A sled is the thing that a musher rides on when they are on the Iditarod trail. Mushers need lots of food for themselves and their dogs.
Obstacles
There are many obstacles on the Iditarod trail. A wolf can give the team rabies, can kill a member of the team, and are known to stalk the team because the wolf knows it scares the dogs. Other obstacles include things like cracking ice and rock slides that are also very dangerous. Even bumpy roads can be pretty dangerous to the team.
History
A famous dog in the history of the Iditarod was Balto. Balto was the first Iditarod champion dog. This dog went from Nenana to Nome on February 2, 1925 to get a medicine called Antitoxin Serum. This antidote was to cure lots of children from the sickness called diphtheria. The serum left Anchorage by train on Monday, January 26, 1925 and arrived in Nenana on Tuesday at 11 pm. At that point 20 dog drivers took part in a 674-mile relay race from Nenana to Nome. The serum arrived in Nome just one week from Anchorage and 127 1/2 hours from Nenana. The teams of dogs saved many lives. The Iditarod race originated in 1973, and to this day some people still race from Anchorage to Nome. This dog race is now a sport when back then it was to save many lives. When World War 2 came most of the racers went to be in the war. When they went this dog racing game was almost forgotten. But thanks to Joe Reddington Sr. the race was brought back to life.
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I interviewed Lily-Anne Hamill on April 21, 2005, at the SOAR room of
the Selah Intermediate School. She is a 5th grade expert on the
Iditarod. Lily enjoys the adventure, outdoors, risk, and enthusiasm of
the Iditarod. Lily’s opinion on how things have changed in recent years
is that the sleds are more aerodynamic so they go faster. Also the dogs
are getting faster so there’s more excitement. Things are getting
wilder like the obstacles are getting better and more exciting. When I asked Lily what some major problems facing the Iditarod today are, she said that the Humane Society was a huge problem because they think that the Iditarod harms the dogs when it’s a proven fact that it doesn’t. The Humane Society has already seen information that shows that it’s good for the dogs but they just don’t want to believe it. So there’s a big fight breaking out between them and the Iditarod Company, so there might not be an Iditarod in the future. Another thing that is a problem to the Iditarod is the lack of knowledge in the world about the Iditarod. The fewer people who know about the Iditarod the fewer racers there will be in the future. If they don’t have very many racers they might have to close the Iditarod. Lily predicts that the future of the Iditarod will be more interesting, and more people will know about it (or less people will know about it and the sport will just go away, and be forgotten). Some things that we can do to help the Iditarod become a better sport are do projects on the Iditarod, tell kids that don’t know about the Iditarod, and follow the Iditarod racers through the schools like over the computer or do games to represent the mushers moving through the Iditarod trail. Then just like a little for fun question I asked her if she had any dogs. Lily said that she had 1 chocolate lab.
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Brown, Tricia. “Iditarod.” Iditarod Country, Exploring the Route of the last great race. 1998. Don’s Trail Notes. “Iditarod.” [www.Iditarod.com] 2004. Nightingale, Dave. “Iditarod.” The World Book Encyclopedia. 2002. p. 47 “Northern Commercial Company asked to arrange for relay teams for the 1925 diphtheria serum run to Nome.” [www.alaskan.com/docs/dipth.html] 2004. The North American Mushing Directory. “Iditarod.”2004
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