Today is a big day for the junior racers!

Vet checks begin this morning at 8am and go until noon, and then the mandatory musher meeting at 5:00 via ZOOM. Busy day before they head out tomorrow morning! Vet checks run the same way as Iditarod; each dog is carefully examined by a volunteer veterinarian to ensure their health for their journey over the next 2 days. At the musher meeting, they go over the rules and listen to advice from past mushers about gear and clothing. They will also do the bib drawing to determine the starting order of the race the next day. They usually finish by doing a Q&A where the mushers get to ask about things on their mind pertaining to the race. Pizza has traditionally been the dinner of choice for this event.

Christina Gibson of Carlton, WA at vet check in 2018. Photo Credit: Terrie Hanke

Richard Plack – Trail Boss. Photo redit: Terrie Hanke

Normally, the start of the Junior Iditarod tomorrow would be the first day that I would be hitting the trail and donning my heavy duty winter gear. However, since I will not be there in person this year, I had some of my students help out with my gear to see if I was missing anything, and make sure it all is in working order. We also took a look at some of the clothes that mushers need to wear for the race and compared it to what I have.

I found this great video of musher Blair Braverman going through all of her layers to show just how much clothing mushers wear. It’s incredible! (Scroll down the page a little to find it).

https://www.outsideonline.com/2390771/how-mushers-layer-iditarod

I hope you tune in for the race tomorrow and follow the juniors on their adventure with GPS!

Teachers: Elementary – Now that you have seen how much gear mushers wear, have your class complete a venn diagram of their winter gear compared with a musher’s winter gear. 

Upper Level – Have your class look at some of these items and determine an order of importance. Also, take a look at the cost of these things to see just how expensive gear can be!