Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Iditarod, for those of you who have lived on the moon since 1973, or maybe even
1925, is the annual running of the Last Great Race, eleven hundred miles from Anchorage
to Nome, commemorating the heroic 1925 run when teams of mushers relayed a life-sav-
ing vaccine to a diphtheria-stricken Nome.
On January 21, 1925, Dr. Welch in Nome diagnosed the epidemic and telegraphed for
help. The only serum available was in Anchorage, and the only two planes available to fly
it were in Fairbanks, but they had been dismantled and stored for the winter. Territorial
Governor Scott C. Bone contacted Northern Commercial Company to arrange for relay
teams of mushers. The serum went from Anchorage to Nenana by train, where it was
picked up by Wild Bill Shannon, the first musher in the relay, at eleven p.m. on January
27
th
. On February 2, twenty mushers and 127 and a half hours later, through temperatures
reaching 30 degrees below zero, gale-force winds, and over uncertain ice on Norton
Sound, the serum arrived in Nome.
In 1973, they started racing it, with thirty-six dog teams entered and a $50,000 purse.
This year there are sixty-nine teams entered and first prize alone is $62,000 and change.
The mushers are unloading their teams and hitching them to the sleds. The dogs are bark-
ing, licking every face in reach, fighting each other to get into the traces, straining at the
gangline, wild to hit the trail.
The atmosphere is carnival, Anchorage style. At the corner of 4
th
and F is Mike Ander-
son's hot dog stand. I eat Mike's hot dogs all summer long (Polish, raw onions, mustard,
relish, jalapenos, no kraut) when he's selling them at the other end of the block. What is
he doing here in March? “Selling dogs.” To whom? “Mushers and handlers, mostly.” How
many? “A lot.” At nine o'clock in the morning people aren't lining up yet, but he predicts
“It'll pick up in a hour or so and then the line won't stop until two or three.” He's upset
that he forgot his music, as rock and roll is part of M.A.'s Hot Dogs' essential ambiance.
A block down, on the other side of E, Boy Scout Troop 35 from Palmer is selling Iditar-
od souvenirs, including dog booties for a buck each. “We do it to raise funds for our
troop's summer camp,” says Scout Eric Hansen. It's not even ten o'clock and they've only
got one bootie left.
Ten feet later John Sarvis is selling furs. “Been here the last fifteen years,” he says, and
then goes off to show a crystal fox hat, his best seller, to a woman with red cheeks and a
