Iditarod!

January, as a month, is okay.  Sure, we're coming down off a major holiday and all the sugary goodness that goes with it.  But that gives us a fitness goal to focus on.  And there's still enough leftover goodwill in the air that nobody wants to strangle anybody else for a good part of the month.  Then comes February.  The longest, coldest, darkest month ever.  Some might try to tell you that there are only 28 (or 29) days, so it is actually the shortest month.  Don't believe them.  It's all a lie.  February is full of long, dark, cold days followed by long, cold, dark nights, with nothing to break up the monotony.

But then comes the glorious month of March.  It's not the best month ever, but its coming means that February is over and that is something to be thankful for.  Now, for some of you, March might mean the beginning of spring.  Not so much in Alaska.  March is still very much a winter month.  (And so is April, but that's another matter entirely).  Dog sledding is a winter sport, and the fact that we still have enough winter to hold a dog sled race in March says something about our weather.  March is still (very) cold, but the days are longer than the nights, and the whole month seems shorter because there is something to get excited about.  That something is the Iditarod. 

The Iditarod is a 1000-mile sled dog race that runs from Anchorage to Nome each year.  It starts on the first Saturday in March, and ends a couple of weeks later.  There are 25 checkpoints along the way that mushers must check in to, and Elim is privileged to be one of those checkpoints.  We get to see all the teams coming through, and usually time our spring break to coincide with when the majority of the teams are passing. Spring break in itself is enough, but to have it coincide with 60 dog teams running through is pretty cool.

The first teams started coming through on Monday.  I kept an eye on the internet tracker all day, knowing that the first teams had left Koyuk.  From there, it's about 7 hours to Elim.  The kids knew what was coming, and were darn excited.  A gauge of our focus level came right at the beginning of the day.  We were reviewing coins and thinking about the features of each one.  I asked, "Does anyone remember from yesterday whose face is on the quarter?"  Right in front, one little girl piped up, "Jeff King!"  Jeff King is a musher who has won several Iditarods and came out of retirement to run this year.  I knew then and there that we weren't getting anything done that day. 

I let the kids go about five minutes early because the first team was close and they all made a bee-line for the fire hall/armory/checkpoint.  Dallas Seavey was in first place.  He didn't stay long, just long enough to grab his food bags, some straw, and let the vets check his dogs.

He's a young'un!  He loaded those bags onto his sled along with some straw.  Rumor has it, he stopped a couple miles out of the village to rest and snack his dogs instead of stopping in the village.  Something about throwing off the competition.  (It must have worked, because he ended up winning!) 

The vets check every dog at every checkpoint.

Back on the trail to Nome!

We waited around for another half an hour or so because we knew that the next musher wasn't far behind.  Aily Zirkle rolled into town and actually parked her team for a break.  She moved around bedding down her dogs and feeding them, while the vets did their thing.

The crowd started to thin out at this point.  The next musher wasn't expected for at least another hour.  The kids, however, were having a ball.  One of my students is an animal lover, particularly dogs, and I watched her stand motionless watching this team for a long time.

Some other students had another idea for a good vantage point:

Those are big straw bales they are laying on. 

And, of course, no post would be complete without a shot of Maquire the Moose, whom the cameraman was carrying around and letting the kids play with.