Warming trend hits sled dog race
I never realized how many people participated in sled dog racing — or how many fans the sport had — until I started writing for CoolDog. Now, when I look for stories to post on the site I find dozens of stories about people sledding with their dogs and taking part in sled dog racing. I had no idea! I'm from an area where it rarely ever snows, so this is all a little new to me.
Yesterday I got my new issue of the AKC Gazette. I was reading the column about English Setters and, would you believe? The guest column was written by a woman who taught her English Setter to sled. They have been racing competitively and the dog will soon have earned his sled dog title. Amazing. I had no idea English Setters were doing such things. So, sledding isn't just for Huskies and Malamutes.
Click here for a link to a PBS web site about sledding and sled dogs.
From the L.A. Times
Warming trend hits sled dog race
Zack Steer waives to onlookers as he drives his team at the start of last year's Iditarod in Willow, Alaska. The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race officials have moved the start of the race from the traditional site in Wasilla, 30 miles to the south, citing urban growth and a warming climate.
Alaska's Iditarod will permanently move its official start north for better snow conditions. Al Grillo / Associated Press
From the Associated Press
6:04 PM PST, January 9, 2008
ANCHORAGE, ALASKA — Modern challenges are catching up with the world's most famous sled dog race.
Citing rapid urban growth and a warming climate, officials with the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race said Wednesday they were implementing permanent logistical changes that in recent years have become the norm for the March event.
The March 1 ceremonial start in Anchorage will run 11 miles, seven miles shorter than the traditional route. The actual competitive start of the 1,100-mile race the following day will move 30 miles north to Willow from the historical site in Wasilla, Iditarod headquarters and part of the fastest growing region of the state.
"A lot of development in the area makes it less desirable, and there have been less-than-winter conditions," said Stan Hooley, executive director of the Iditarod Trail Committee. "It just doesn't make sense to us to make choices that are not in the best interest of both the two- and four-legged competitors."
Long gone are the early days of the race begun in 1973 to commemorate the 1925 delivery by sled dogs of lifesaving diphtheria serum to Nome.
Because of lack of snow, the competitive launch — called the restart — has not taken place in Wasilla since 2002. The following year, conditions were so dismal along some stretches of the race trail north of Willow that race managers made the unprecedented decision to hold the restart in Fairbanks, more than 200 miles from Wasilla.
Since then, Willow has been the site where mushers and their dog teams begin the trek to Nome.
For the ceremonial start, snow is trucked along the route that begins in downtown Anchorage. That's not a solution for the actual competition, officials said.
"The reality is the teams racing," Hooley said. "That, in and of itself, means there's a completely different level of acceptable conditions on the trails."
Willow also has become the preferred site for its rural setting, officials said. Mushers take off from the frozen Willow River and soon vanish into the wilderness.
Wasilla, on the other hand, has seen tremendous development and growth over the years. Now houses and businesses line the Knik-Goose Bay Road parallel to the Wasilla race route leading to the checkpoint in the community of Knik, home of late Joe Redington Sr., father of the Iditarod. Under the route changes, Knik also will be bypassed.
"No matter how many resources we have available, conditions will never be as race-ready as Willow," Hooley said. "No matter what the weather conditions would be, there's a lot of asphalt and other things that don't mix well with competitive racing. To be around that is stressful for the dogs."
In the early days of the Iditarod, there were no ceremonial starts at all. The first two years, in fact, saw the competitive race taking off from Anchorage, recalled 1978 winner Dick Mackey, the father of defending champion Lance Mackey.
Mushers were slower in those days, their loads heavier and their equipment inferior to today's sleek sleds, Mackey said in a phone interview from his winter home in Quartzsite, Ariz. Wasilla was a long way from development, too, he said.
"In general it's much easier just to disappear and not have to contend with the crowds," he said.
For that reason, Willow is a good choice for the restart even though Wasilla is "beautiful for fans," Mackey said.
Losing traditional Iditarod spots like Wasilla and Knik is sad, said the younger Mackey, who won the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race three weeks before winning last year's Iditarod. But for the most part, the Fairbanks musher was pleased with the new official restart site, even though it means fans from southcentral Alaska will have to travel farther.
"It's easier for the mushers, no doubt about it," he said. "And it's a good excuse for people to get out and see Alaska."
