Alaska’s annual dog sled race, the Iditarod Race, takes place on the second Saturday in March each year. The race begins in Anchorage with the finish line in Nome, a distance of approximately 1,200 miles. The first race was held on March 3, 1973. Since that first race, the popularity of this event has grown over the years, along with the amount of prize money. The winner of the 1973 race received $50,000 and today that amount has risen to around $500,000.
Mushers spend anywhere from a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands of dollars on the race. They not only have to pay the entrance fee, but also the cost of their sled, clothing and equipment; plus the cost of keeping their dogs year-round, the total estimated cost of which is around $60,000. They have corporate sponsors who sponsor them, which helps defray their cost.
The Alaska Iditarod is about the same to Alaska as the Indy 500, the Super Bowl, or the Olympics. It is the longest distance dog sled race in the world. It originated as a tribute to a real event that occurred during the winter of 1925. During that winter of 1925, a deadly outbreak of diphtheria occurred, threatening every child in Nome. They needed the serum to combat this disease, but the serum was in the city of Anchorage, more than 1,000 miles to the southeast.
There was a plane that could have flown to Anchorage to pick up the drug, but it had been dismantled and stored for the winter. A large Alaskan wilderness of uninhabited land lay between Anchorage and Nome. There was icy, rugged terrain with no roads. As a last resort, it was decided to try sled dogs to travel to Anchorage and pick up the medicine.
The medicine was brought to Nenana from Anchorage by the Alaska Railroad. A dog sled relay would be used to pick up the medicine in Nenana, a city north of Anchorage. Twenty mushers volunteered to carry Nenana’s medicine to Nome, 674 miles away. It was minus 50 when the first musher left Nenana and six days later, on February 2, 1925, Gunner Kaassen’s dog team arrived in Nome. Legend has it that on this last leg of the journey, a strong gust of wind overturned the sled and the life-saving serum fell onto the snow. Kaassen used his bare hands to scoop the serum out of the snow, brought his sled upright, and proceeded to finish the journey to Nome.
The leading husky of the Kaassen dog team was Balto. He immediately became a world hero, as the world had been watching this story unfold through newspaper accounts. Balto traveled the United States for two years after the serum’s execution, with people celebrating his heroics in helping save the children in Nome.
Then in 1933, when Balto died, his preserved body was put on display at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. His popularity lives on, as an animated film about Balto was made in 1995.
It has become a hot spot among Alaskan kids and some are working to get Balto back to his home state of Alaska at the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race Museum in Wasilla.
Balto is also partly responsible for the Iditarod Race, which was first started in 1973. It is held to commemorate the courage of the mushers and dogs who participated in that do-or-die race to save the children of Nome. .