School is out when the Iditarod comes through! -Nikolai

What does it mean to the people in Alaska’s interior communities when the dog teams come through?  The children often get half or whole days off school to help out or watch the mushers check in.  They may help with heating water for the mushers, give volunteers snow machine rides from the airport, or decorate the checkpoint with welcome signs!

In some of the checkpoints, one of the elders may have made handmade fur mittens as a prize for a musher who arrives first.  Many of the local people volunteer each year as the race passes through their village, setting up a musher sleeping area and dog resting site, checking in mushers as they arrive,  raking up soiled straw from the dogs, or making food for the mushers.  

Just like other professional athletes, the children have their favorites who drive through.  They excitedly cheer them on, hoping for an autograph.  In the village of Anvik in 2018, a woman drove her snow machine up river in order to have a musher sign his autograph on a dog bootie!  The Iditarod celebrates the Alaskan culture of sled dogs; the people who live along the trail, only accessible by plane, boat, snow machine, or dog sled, truly pitch in to help the mushers and their teams.  

Musher Noah Pereira autographs a dog bootie in Anvik, 2018.

Some of the children just enjoy watching the dogs and play on the snowbanks near where the dogs rest.  The adults enjoy visiting again with the volunteers and mushers who come every other year.  This year is different, as many of the communities will not be visited because of caution during the pandemic.  However, you can bet that the Alaskans will be planning for the 2022 Iditarod on the northern route and 2023 on the southern route, ready to keep watch for the teams coming into town.