Dear Boys and Girls,

Tonight something special happens in the city of Anchorage, Alaska!  Today, the day before the ceremonial start of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race, the streets of the city are like any other.  The snow is  plowed off roads so cars can easily drive through town.  But tonight… the streets of Anchorage need to be transformed!

The streets of Anchorage are plowed and ready for cars.

Friday evening, a long line of dump trucks will come again and again to dump clean, rock free, snow onto the usually cleared streets!  They must get ready for all the dogs and sleds that will start the race tomorrow morning.  Big plows will spread about six inches of snow evenly on the main streets so we sled dogs can run in the snow and pull our sleds behind!  

Bringing in the snow

If you watch the ceremonial start of the race on Saturday morning at Iditarod.com, look at all the snow under our feet.  We can thank the dump trucks and volunteers for that snow!  Saturday, after all the teams have left Anchorage, the volunteers will scrape up the snow and take it back out of the city.  Whew!  It’s a lot of work to get ready for the Iditarod, but worth it!

Until next time, this is your canine reporter,

Gypsy