News and Information
Aliy Zirkle and Allen Moore were featured at a meet and greet sponsored by Clarion Suites of Anchorage. The first couple of the Yukon Quest shared stories about past race adventures and gave detailed information about their equipment. One thing neither of the SP Kennel owners talked about was their Iditarod strategy. Just a month …
How ironic is it that you can be right in the middle of all the Iditarod action but not know what’s happening along the trail? I’ve worked as a communications specialist at Skwentna Checkpoint for eight years and the same has been true for all eight years. The race runs through the checkpoint sitting below …
The Ceremonial Start of the 2014 Iditarod has been completed. Mushers and teams are doing their last minute chores and hopefully getting a good night’s rest before tomorrow’s restart. Tomorrow it starts for real, but today was all about the atmosphere, the fans, the celebration and the fun – for mushers, friends, family, fans, and …
Thank you Brent Sass! Sounds strange to say thanks to a guy who wisely withdrew from the Iditarod after sustaining a head injury during the Yukon Quest. Sass and Allen Moore were on track for an exciting finish. Prior to the finial checkpoint of the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest, Sass and Moore were playing leapfrog on …
The doors opened at 5:00 and there were plenty of ardent Iditarod fans as well as volunteers, mushers and sponsors in the large windowed lobby waiting to be the first to enter. The musher banquet held at the beautiful Dena’ina Convention Center in downtown Anchorage on Thursday evening prior to the race is always a …
The thrill is not in victory but in the courage to join the race! Nowhere could this be more evident than at the Junior Iditarod banquet. These young mushers dreamed one day of running dogs. Later they dreamed of camping with their dogs. Even later these juniors dreamed of racing. They DARED to dream and …
Junior Iditarod mushers attended the mandatory musher meeting on race eve at Iditarod Headquarters. Ten Teen mushers has no evolved into nine Teen mushers as Joan Klejka from Bethel has withdrawn from the race. Carl Brooke explained the Spot Trackers to the Teens. The two units, one being a back up, each fit into a …
With all the concern of where the re-start would be, it was a relief to hear the final decision and move onto things like speculating about the elite-ten. What looks good on paper and in theory doesn’t always turn out to be true when the runners hit the snow. As with anyone trying to pick …
It was a bright sunny fleece and light jacket sort of day in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan when I had the good fortune of walking through the dog yard at Nature’s Kennel. Ed and Tasha Stielstra host an annual Musher Symposium and Teacher’s Conference late in September and this was the Sunday morning …
When it comes to training for Iditarod, there’s a word of advice out there shared by long distance mushers – the best way to train for a 1,000-mile sled dog race is to run a 1,000-mile race. That pearl of advice gained credence with Lance Mackey. In 2007 Lance won the Yukon Quest and turned …
