The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, more commonly known as The Iditarod, is an annual long-distance sled dog race held in Alaska in early March. It travels from Anchorage to Nome. Mushers and a team of between 12 and 16 dogs, of which at least 5 must be on the towline at the finish line, cover the distance in 8–15 days or more. The Iditarod began in 1973 as an event to test the best sled dog mushers and teams but evolved into today's highly competitive race.
A sled dog is a dog trained and used to pull a land vehicle in harness, most commonly a sled over snow.
Sled dog racing is a winter dog sport most popular in the Arctic regions of the United States, Canada, Russia, Greenland and some European countries. It involves the timed competition of teams of sled dogs that pull a sled with the dog driver or musher standing on the runners. The team completing the marked course in the least time is judged the winner.
A dog sled or dog sleigh is a sled pulled by one or more sled dogs used to travel over ice and through snow. Numerous types of sleds are used, depending on their function. They can be used for dog sled racing. Traditionally in Greenland and the eastern Canadian Arctic the Inuit had the dogs pull in a fan shape in front of the sled, while in other regions, such as Alaska and the western part of Northern Canada the dogs pull side by side in pairs.
Mushing is a sport or transport method powered by dogs. It includes carting, pulka, dog scootering, sled dog racing, skijoring, freighting, and weight pulling. More specifically, it implies the use of one or more dogs to pull a sled, most commonly a specialized type of dog sled on snow, or a rig on dry land.
The Yukon Quest, formally the Yukon Quest 1,000-mile International Sled Dog Race, is a sled dog race scheduled every February since 1984 between Fairbanks, Alaska, and Whitehorse, Yukon, switching directions each year. Because of the harsh winter conditions, difficult trail, and the limited support that competitors are allowed, it is considered the "most difficult sled dog race in the world", or even the "toughest race in the world"—"even tougher, more selective and less attention-seeking than the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race." The originator envisioned it as "a race so rugged that only purists would participate."
Emmitt Peters Sr. the "Yukon Fox", was an Alaskan American hunter, fisher, trapper, and dog musher. The last rookie to win the 1,049 mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, he and his lead dogs Nugget and Digger shattered the previous speed record by almost six days.
Ramy "Ray" Brooks is an Alaska Native kennel owner and operator, motivational speaker, and dog musher who specializes in long-distance races. He is a two-time runner up in the 1,049+ mi Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race across the U.S. state of Alaska, and a former winner of the 1,000 mi (1,600 km) Yukon Quest dog sled race across both Canada and the U.S.
Lance Mackey was an American dog musher and dog sled racer from Fairbanks, Alaska. Mackey was a four-time winner of both the 1,000-mile (1,600 km) Yukon Quest and the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.
Newton Marshall is a professional independent dogsled musher.
Dog booties, commonly called booties, are rubber, fabric, or plastic coverings for dogs' paws used to protect the animal from cold weather, rough terrain, or injury. They are analogous to human shoes and are most common in sled dog races. Many races require booties as a basic element of dog care. The Yukon Quest Sled Dog Race for example, requires mushers to carry no fewer than eight booties per dog.
Sebastian Schnuelle is a Canadian dog musher and dog sled racer from Whitehorse, Yukon, who won the 2009 1,000 mile Yukon Quest sled dog race. Schnuelle is fluent in English, French, and German. Nicknames: 'Sab' or 'the Armchair Musher'.
Charlie Biederman was a musher in Alaska best known for being the last surviving dog sled mail carrier in the United States. Charlie was born in Alaska as the son of Ed Biederman, a musher born in Bohemia who immigrated to the United States in 1874 and also delivered the mail via dog sled. The date of Charlie's birth is unclear, but contemporary U.S. Censuses indicate it likely was around 1919. Charlie had four siblings. Charlie was raised in Eagle, Alaska, but lived in an isolated cabin on the Yukon River for most of his life. From an early age, he assisted his father and brother in their winter deliveries of the mail to isolated cabins in central Alaska. In winter, the family lived in Eagle and ran the mail route between that town and Circle, another small settlement approximately 158 miles (254 km) downriver. In the summer, the family lived at their Yukon River cabin, harvesting fish for subsistence and boarding the dogs of fellow mushers. In 1938, the family were underbid for the main contract for mail delivery in the area by a bush pilot. Ed Biederman retired shortly afterward and died in 1945. The final dog sled mail route was replaced in 1963. That final route was from Gambell to Savoonga and was run by Chester Noongwook. In January 1995, he donated the mail-delivery sled he used to the National Postal Museum in Washington, D.C., where it hangs today. One month after making the delivery, he died on February 22, 1995.
Eagle Summit is a 3,652 feet (1,113 m)-tall gap through the White Mountains of central Alaska. The gap was named after the nearby Eagle River by prospectors from nearby Circle, Alaska.
Dallas Seavey is an American dog musher, and is the only musher to win the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race across the U.S. state of Alaska six times: in 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2021, and 2024. In 2011, Seavey competed in and won the Yukon Quest sled dog race. In 2018 and 2019, Seavey also competed in Europe's longest sled dog race, Norway's Finnmarksløpet.
Aliy Zirkle is an American champion of sled dog racing.
Brent Sass is an American dog musher who is one of only six people to have won both the Iditarod and Yukon Quest sled dog races.
Kati Dagenais is a musher, an athlete in sled-dog racing. In 2009 she won the title of world champion in sled-dog racing in the 4-dog and 6-dog categories. In 2013 she won the world championship in 8-dog racing.
