Half hour before the sun rose, forty teachers attending the 2013 Iditarod Winter Educator’s Conference climbed onto a bus with all of the excitement of fourth graders. Iditarod field trip day is a not to be missed experience. After heading from Anchorage to Wasilla, the first stop was at Iditarod Headquarters for vet check. No, the vets weren’t checking the teachers, but the mushers were bringing their teams in for a head to tail pre-race check up and taking care of all the necessary paper work for the canine athletes.

Photo possibilities were endless! The constant buzz – did you get a shot of this, did you see this, those dogs are so beautiful, go check this out… Three generations of Mackeys were at HQ. Wow, now that’s a picture – Dick Mackey who won in 1978, Lance Mackey who has four championships and Cain Carter who won the Junior Iditarod in 2009.

Joar Leifseth Ulsom of Norway rolled in with his dogs along with Russian, Mikhail Telpin and his dogs. Telpin runs Chukchi sled dogs that are strongly built and slightly shaggy. Spectators at the vet check flocked to see the handsome dogs.

The afternoon stop for the field trip was Martin Buser’s Happy Trails Kennel. Martin’s tour was highlighted with his harnessing a 16 dog team and take off on the final training run before the Iditarod XLI start on Saturday.

Born to Run,

Sanka