Rookie musher, Silvia Furtwängler, has been mushing for twenty-seven years and was inspired to do the Iditarod after completing the 2003 Yukon Quest, another 1,000-mile race. Silvia was born in Germany and has since immigrated to Norway where she owns a tour guide business and thirty-seven sled dogs. Currently she and her sixteen Iditarod dogs are housed at Vern Halter’s Dream a Dream Kennel almost next to the starting line in Willow.

Consider the logistics of getting her dog team from Norway to Alaska. She took her team by boat from Norway to Germany, then flew from Germany to Seattle and then Seattle to Anchorage. Furtwängler was intrigued by Roald Amundsen’s training ground, Hardangervidda, a windswept inhospitable piece of tundra in Norway. She’s crossed the plateau with her dog team like Amundsen only he crossed on skies training for his polar expeditions. Good luck Silvia and God speed on your journey to Nome.