Cross Breeds - Is anyone familier with the Alaska Iditarod Dog sled Race? If so what have you heard about it?

Is anyone familier with the Alaska Iditarod Dog sled Race? If so what have you heard about it?

Please take a look at the link I provided from the Anchorage Daily Newspaper. http://www.adn.com/iditarod/

Public Comments

of course,Yukon Quest too.North American championships coming up in Fairbanks,town will be filled,lots to do.
Of coarse its awesome i want to go in it one day how fun would it be
First off I'm about as familiar as anyone. I know it was started as a commemoration of a trek to deliver a vaccine to an isolated community. With that said I like watching the edited version after the race has been completed.I cant believe in the day of reality TV it isn't more popular and promoted. People may be afraid of law suits if there is a fatality. That is why Mark Burnett had to stop making the ECO challenge. If your wondering if the word had got out about this years race,yes I heard about it on CNN.
Susan Butcher never backed away from a challenge. That is why she won the" Iditarod" 4 times. From the "Iditarod", comes the saying in Alaska, "Where men are men and women win the Iditarod!".
Yeah, the story goes like this. In 1925, there was a diptheria outbreak in Nome, Alaska. At the time there was no vaccine for the disease, so prevention was not possible, and antibiotics had not yet been discovered. The only cure was an antitoxin that was prepared as a serum from animals that are immune to the diptheria bacterium, Corynebacterium diptheriae. The antitoxin needed for the patients in Nome were prepared in Anchorage, and the frozen antitoxin was scheduled to be shipped by train to Nenana, from where it would be flown to Nome. However, knowing that an air accident could result in the loss of the entire shipment of antitoxin, the decision was made to send half of the 1,000,000 units of antitoxin by dog sled from Nenana to Nome, a journey of 650 miles. 200,000 units of frozen antitoxin were delivered on Feb 2, 1925 and the remaining 300,000 on the next day. The shipment was used to control the outbreak, which caused 26 confirmed diagnoses of diptheria, four more suspected cases and five deaths. The Iditarod held today is to commemorate the accomplishments of the mushers (dog-sled drivers) of a 650 mile trek in blizzard conditions. The first Iditarod was held in 1973 and the most successful winner is Rick Swenson (five times) and the most successful woman in the Iditarod is Susan Butcher (four-time winner).