I discovered the Alaskan Iditarod Dog Race by accident when looking for something cold and difficult to race in the aftermath of the Marathon des Sables. There are two races which have the word Iditarod in them ...one a foot race (which was what I was looking for)and the dog race one. I say "dog race" for a very specific reason ...it is the dogs who do the racing. The mushers are along mainly in a support role ! As I read about both, I kept on coming back to the dog race - the stats for the race are mind blowing - 1180 miles across the Alaskan wilderness from Anchorage to Nome continous (with a couple of mandatory rest periods to make sure the dogs are not run into the ground ...nothing to do with resting the mushers)- a true adventure race.The Iditarod Trail was orginally used by the Native American peoples hundreds of years before the arrival of Russian fur traders in the 1800s, but the trail reached its peak between the late 1880s and the mid 1920s as miners arrived to dig coal and later gold, especially after the Alaska gold rushes at Nome. The race began in 1973.
The reason the book had sat on the shelf was mainly because I knew that the discovery channel was airing a 6 week series on the race and also I knew we would be using a dog team as support on the Norway trip - reckoned I would appreciate the book more after these - and I was right !
Gary's book describes everything from being a complete novice ...to starting and finishing the race. He is very open on his mistakes (of which there are plenty) and his relationship with his team. The book is hilarious at times and equally heartbreaking at times. From the realtively short time I spent with the dogs in Norway, I could start to identify with much of what Gary describes.
In short another fantastic book for any who loves combining adventure and exploration in wild places.
I will never race dogs but there is that foot race ...
Mmmmm - the issue of censorship !
ReplyDeleteI moderate comments on this blog and I do not apolgise for this.
Since it started every genuine comment has been posted unmoderated. The reason for controlling comments is to prevent spam ...in particular offensive spam. Within an hour of me posting the blog on the Iditarod, I received a comment from a woman called Margery Glickman with some "facts" on the Idiatrod. It would appear she is on a crusade against the Iditarod Dog Race. The reason I have moderated her comment is that despite a fair bit of research, I cannot verify if she is correct ...or not. Her site is:
http://www.helpsleddogs.org/
Please feel free to read and make up your own mind.
For what it is worth, I reckon there are at least two types of folks who race dogs ...there will be good mushers who love and take great care of their dogs (as I would say Gary Paulsen is from his book anyway) and bad. The "modern" way is to deal with the bad by banning the race - surely a more mature and honest thing to do would be to tackle the bad ?
When humans and animals mix be it farming ...or indeed sport - there will always be conflicting opinions and viewpoints.