The Iditarod Education program launched two very successful mail based programs this year, to honor the use of the Historic Iditarod Trail as a mail trail: the Iditarod Postcard Challenge and the Educational Trail Mail Art Contest and Trail Mail projects.

Sixty classes and homeschool students representing 42 states and Canada, exchanged postcards to teach each other about their states. The cards shared information about the state sport and dog as well as other interesting facts. Did you know that Alaska’s state dog, the Alaskan malamute, was chosen by a group of school kids? And, no fan of Iditarod will be surprised to learn that mushing is the state sport!

If you’d like to get in on this project for next year, be sure to keep an eye on the September Newsletter and the Iditarod EDU Facebook page next fall for your chance to secure your spot!

The Third Grade’s Collection in Baltimore

Ms. Relph’s Class’s Collection in Arkansas

Ms. Serigne’s Class’s Collection (early on) in California

Following our Inaugural Trail Mail Art Contest, which you can read about here, we were thrilled to send 288 letters down the trail for classes from 38 different states, Canada, and Great Britain.Teachers from preschool to college used the Trail Mail as away to have a piece of their classes travel the trail in a mushers’ sled. Each class found out ahead of time which musher had their mail so that they could track their team throughout the race. Projects that were carried by the mushers ranged from student artwork, to poetry and stories, to collections of signatures, to Bitmoji class pictures. We are especially grateful to Ryan Redington who agreed to carry an extra cachet of mail when Sean Williams wasn’t able to start the race at the last minute.