iditarod race event

Iditarod History

The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race officially started in 1973, but the trail itself and the use of dog teams as a mode of transportation has a long and storied past. In the 1920s for example, newly arrived settlers looking for gold used dog teams in the winter to travel along the historic Iditarod Trail and into the gold fields.

In 1925, the same Iditarod Trail was used to move medicine from Nenana to Nome after an outbreak of diphtheria threatened the lives of nearly everyone in the small, remote Alaskan town. The journey was nearly 700 miles (1,127 km) through incredibly harsh terrain, but showed how reliable and strong dog teams were. Dogs were also used to deliver mail and carry other supplies to the many isolated areas of Alaska during this time and many years later.

Throughout the years however, technological advances led to the replacement of sled dog teams by airplanes in some cases and finally, snow mobiles. In an effort to recognize the long history and tradition of dog sledding in Alaska, Dorothy G. Page, chairman of the Wasilia-Knik Centennial helped set up a short race on the Iditarod Trail in 1967 with musher Joe Redington, Sr. to celebrate Alaska's Centennial Year. The success of that race led to another one in 1969 and the development of the longer Iditarod that is famous today.

The original goal of the race was for it to end in Iditarod, an Alaskan ghost town, but after the United States Army reopened that area for its own use, it was decided that the race would go all the way to Nome, making the final race approximately 1,000 miles (1,610 km) long.