Saturday was the day for the ceremonial start of the Iditarod in Anchorage. I don't recall where the actual start takes place but the race ends in Nome. It is a grueling 1049 mile race. Each year the racers run through Anchorage at the end of the "Fur Rondy" week--a big celebration of winter fun and fur auctions, snow bowling, car racing, the running of the reindeer, etc. For the Iditarod ceremonial run, there are 5 points in Anchorage to see the dogs and racers as they glide through town. We chose a quieter spot so that we could see and hear the dogs up close. (Once again, I'm having no luck uploading video so pics will have to do.)
The dogs were very beautiful and very focused. A few curious ones got out of step but it was rare to see them dart out of place.
Where'd those dogs go?
After a while waiting for each sled team to come through was too uneventful, and Caleb had a ball on the playground.
Every now and then, he'd stop playing to wave at the mushers as they passed!
There he is, the man himself, Lance Mackey, winner of the '07 and '08 Iditarod. He's predicted to win this year as well. (He won the Yukon Quest and the Iditarod in the same year...he is not human.) It was rad to see him...we all cheered very loud for him!
Some interesting things we discovered:
*Spectators are not allowed to bring their dogs to watch the mushers, for obvious reasons
*The dogs and sleds are much smaller than I imagined. The dogs are all muscle.
*The dog teams were very quiet--never barked.
*The racers know their dogs by name and would call out to them if they got out of step.
*The dogs wear booties and the tradition is for racers to throw booties to the children. It's like the Alaskan version of a parade except with dog booties being thrown rather than candy. But the racers pick and choose when to throw 1 or 2 of booties. So the kids sit on the sidelines and chant "bootie, bootie". The first time Caleb got booties thrown at him me and Cannon were kind of bewildered. He got 5-6 of them, which was a huge haul.
*I hadn't thought about it, but the contestants are standing on the back of those skinny sleds for 1, 049 miles...talk about endurance.
*In the Lance Mackey pic you can see a lady sitting in the sled. She's a tourist who entered a raffle and won a ride through Anchorage with his team. Each sled (there are 70+ racers this year) had a tourist riding in it.
There is a lot more to learn about the Iditarod and we had a great time seeing the teams up close. If you all want some winter excitement, come on up for the Fur Rondezvous and Iditarod race. It's good fun, Alaskan style.
