Paw Print = Willow, Campbell Airstrip ~ Restart of the 2022 Iditarod Dog Sled Race

Exploration Feeling ~ Day Eight = United

Again, I am speechless.   Today was yet another exciting day as we left Anchorage and headed about 11 miles to Willow.  The bus was filled with obvious excitement for what lay ahead.  Although we ran into an obstacle on the bus driving in, it didn’t stop us from thinking that “this is going to be the best day ever!”  I felt a sense of pride as I walked into the dog sled bubble with so many other volunteers.  I was assigned musher #25 to help handle his dogs – Deke Naaktgeboren.  What an amazing family man!  I tried to capture a picture of Deke with his son.  It was heartwarming to watch how they worked with the dogs together, united as a family.

The crowd was also united with cheers and shout-outs as each musher headed toward the starting line.  They were clearly focused and checking their dogs before the countdown.  To be part of the starting line for a musher and his canine athletes, was unimaginable to me.  Here I was with all these champions that were heading out for days alone on the trail with their dogs made my heart smile.  Watching Deke leave made me feel a bit emotional and excited all at the same time. 

Helping get the dog sled team ready in the line-up.

Marley – my dog that I got to handle.

An exciting farewell to Deke.

I realized that my last day here in Alaska is tomorrow, Monday, March 7th.  I am excited to see my family but the Iditarod has now also become part of my family.  The teacher’s that I met at the conference, the Teacher on the Trail Committee, and of course Cindy and Juli have made my heart 10x bigger this week. 

I always like to share my ice cream story.  My life is like an ice cream cone with a a lot of sprinkles (people) between each scoop.  The waffle cone is my family – Thomas, Tasha, Alex, Luke Roger, Sami, and TJ.  My next scoop up is my Ring Factory Elementary School family.  Then we have a scoop for my Joppatowne Elementary School family. Above my schools are my NBCT family of educators.  Above them are my HCPS Teacher of the Year educators.  The next scoop is my connections with the NASA Space Camp for Educators crew.  Now I can add my Iditarod family as my top scoop.  I am able to have all these scoops of ice cream with tons of sprinkles because of my family.

This makes me think about my exploration feeling today.  All of the mushers, families, volunteers, spectators and athletic dogs themselves have a commonality of being united in some way.  Below are some ideas that you could use to bring harmony into your classroom. 

CAN DO:

1. Give your students a template of an ice cream cone.  Have them research a musher and create a visual of scoops of ice cream to represent a musher’s life on the trail.  You could even have them include ice cream flavors (rocky road, creamsicle,  cookies and cream, rainbow sherbet, etc.).  What do the ice cream flavors and sprinkles represent?  How does your cone best represent that musher living on the trail?

2.  I was able to video musher #21 Aaron Peck’s dogs barking today as they prepared to leave the lake and head out on the trail.  It was like several dogs having the most interesting conversation between them.  I just had to include an idea that you could use with your students.  Watch the attached video through YouTube of dogs getting ready for the Iditarod trail.  What do you notice?  Could you create a conversational piece of what these dogs are possibly talking about before the excitement of leaving Willow?  Think about what these athletes need to do together to get all the way up to Nome.  What are they thinking and telling each other?  Do you think they need to be unified to reach Nome together?  Explain your thinking using details from your prior research.

VIDEO:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCTc8IpW6y8