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Jim Deprez 2021 Teacher on the Trail
Sunday, March 14th As Martin Buser said in a recent Facebook post, the next stretch from Nikolai to Skwentna will be just like Mr. Toad’s Wild ride! There are many unknowns on the return trip, and mushers need to be prepared for anything. Here are the current standings (according to the Iditarod GPS tracker) …
Saturday, March 13th Since it’s the weekend and all of my students are home, the trail reporting will look a little different for the next two days. Instead of video reports from my students, I will be typing up some of the most recent developments in the race. However, on Monday we will go back …
Friday, March 12th Who is winning? This is probably the most common question and one that I get every day, usually as soon as the students walk in the door. For my third graders, it makes the most sense to use the GPS and updated standings on the Insider to determine who is …
Thursday, March 11th As a follow-up to yesterday’s post about Iditarod vocabulary and terminology, another common point of confusion for my students comes with some of the more common language used throughout the race. We have had many class discussions about different homonyms like the bib “draw” and “scratching”. No, mushers do not …
Wednesday, March 10th There is always a big learning curve with regards to the vocabulary associated with the Iditarod. The quantity alone of race-related terminology can be overwhelming, not to mention the added challenge of pronouncing the names of certain checkpoints and even some of the mushers themselves! In my classroom, we always …
Tuesday, March 9th Every year I read the stories of Balto and Togo to my students in order to introduce them to the sport of mushing and the history of the Iditarod trail. The picture that both stories paint of the blizzard is so powerful that it always seems to stick with the …
Monday, March 8th The theme of my trail reporting posts this year is “Frequently Asked Student Questions” about the Iditarod and I am going to start today with one that students ask every year. One of the things they are really curious about is what items mushers pack in their sleds. I often …
The countdown on the Iditarod homepage finally reads “0 Days”, which means Race Day is here! The mushers are prepared, Covid screenings have been done, and the race is only hours away. Aaron Peck, wearing Bib #2, will have the honor of leading the charge down the trail at approximately 2:00pm AKST. Mushers will …
The Pre-Race Show this year was one for the books, or computers actually! The annual pre-race musher’s banquet was done completely virtually this year. Viewers got a closer look at the course, insights from the mushers themselves and video clips of just about every musher to get to know the field. In a …
This year’s Iditarod will be different for many reasons, one being the actual route that teams will follow. For the first time, mushers will race out to the ghost towns of Iditarod and Flat and then BACK along the same trail, which will take them through some of the most challenging portions of the …