I know its shameless to plug a website of your very own….but take a look at iditablog.com. Even though we aren’t in Nome this year, heck we aren’t even in Alaska this year, I’ve still got Iditarod on the brain. I’m posting multiple times a day and will attempt to keep those who are new to the Iditarod updated throughout the race.

For more information and to read my commentaries, head over to iditablog.com

The Winter Games Have Only Just Begun
by Greg Asimakoupoulos

The Torino Olympics may be history, but the excitement of winter sports competition is not limited to the Italian Alps. This month marks the 34th running of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race in Alaska. Upwards of seventy mushers and their dog teams will participate in the “Last Great Race” that commences in Anchorage and culminates in Nome.

For the past two decades Wendy and I have followed this unusual arctic event with keen interest. Ever since our family spent six weeks in Nome in 1987 working at the Covenant’s missionary radio station, we’ve been Iditarodians. Three years ago while researching the history of Covenant missions in Alaska and KICY unique ministry, I experienced a dream come true. I was able to witness the Iditarod in person.

At two o’clock in the morning on March 13, 2003, I joined a thousand enthusiastic fans on Front Street to watch Robert Sorlie, a forty-five year old fireman from Norway, drive his team of dogs to victory. With sub-zero temperatures and a brisk wind off the Bering Sea, I can honestly say (even with long underwear, layers or clothing and a heavy down coat) I have never been so cold in all my life.

Of the sixty-four competitors who had begun the “Last Great Race” nine days earlier, Robert Sorlie was the first to glide beneath that famous burl arch that marks the Iditarod’s finish line. With eight of the sixteen dogs with which he had begun the thousand mile trek, a virtual no-name became was the first Scandinavian ever to win the Iditarod.

Sorlie was not however the first Scandinavian to travel in and around the coastline of the Bering Sea with hopes of breaking new ground. A Covenant missionary from Sweden by the name of Axel Karlson traveled by dog team blazing his own trail more than a century before. For Karlson the reward he sought was not a check for $68,000 and a new Dodge pickup. The thirty-something missionary would be satisfied with nothing less than the joy of leading the indigenous people of Alaska into a relationship with their Creator.

It was Axel Karlson who would penetrate the permafrost of Western Alaska and the frozen hearts of Alaskan natives with the news of God’s grace in Jesus Christ. This nineteenth century dog musher is credited with beginning our denomination’s mission in the North. For this young Swede, it was an urgent mission to save lives from an epidemic of sin and death for which there was only one known cure. Curiously, that urgency was illustrated fifteen years after Karlson’s death through a sled dog race in the very region where he’d lived and ministered.

On January 21, 1925, the lives of countless children in Nome were at stake. An epidemic of diphtheria had broken out. Tragically, the gold rush city did not have a sufficient amount of antitoxin. Dr. Curtis Welch telegraphed Fairbanks, Anchorage, Seward and Juneau, asking for help. 300,000 units of the serum were located at a hospital in Anchorage. It was the only serum in the entire state.

The problem was to get it to Nome in the shortest time possible. With the Bering Sea frozen and no railroad or roads extending to Nome’s remote location, dog teams were the only solution. The 300,000 units were packed in an insulated container and transported to Nenana on an overnight train.

Once the serum arrived a 674 mile relay race by dogteam awaited. It was a distance mushers who delivered the mail normally covered in a month. The first musher took the insulated cylinder of serum 52 miles where he passed the lifesaving baton to the second musher who traveled 31 miles. From musher to musher the relay continued until a total of twenty sled dog drivers cooperated to get the needed medicine to Nome by February 2nd. In only 127 ½ hours the lifesaving serum arrived due to the cooperative effort of individuals who were willing to do brave the austere Alaskan wilderness, sub-zero temperatures and blinding blizzards to accomplish a goal they alone were in a position to reach.

Isn’t that a remarkable story? No wonder Alaskans celebrate its significance each year. Since 1973 the Iditarod has been held to commemorate that historical lifesaving event in which Dr. Welch saved helpless children. It is also a gripping human drama that parallels how the Covenant mission in Western Alaska continued to persevere toward the goal of bringing a lifesaving message to Eskimos dying without knowledge of a Savior.

If you would like to know more about the Covenant Church’s efforts to evangelize the native arctic peoples of Alaska including the part played by a Christian radio station in the legendary gold rush town, why not read Ptarmigan Telegraph?

You can order this book online from www.covenantbookstore.com.

So today is it….the big day that I’ve been waiting a year for: the start of the Iditarod Dog sled race. Last year when we were in Alaska working for radio station KICY, I was able to cover the race for the station, even flying out to the beginning of the race in Anchorage, and a checkpoint out in the bush. This, and all other Iditarod related posts will be mirrored on my Iditarod website, iditablog.com.

I know there are probably many who don’t know about the Iditarod, so lets consider this Iditarod 101:

The race starts in Anchorage, runs through ghost towns, mountain ranges, Eskimo villages, and lots of wilderness for a total of about 23 checkpoints to finish in Nome. The race is just over 1,000 miles total. This year, 82 mushers will compete in the “last great race”. Each team starts with 12 dogs (that means at the start of the race, there are almost 1000 dogs within the 4 block radius of the starting line). Each musher can drop a dog at any checkpoint if they are sick or injured, but has to finish in Nome with at least half the team. In about 9 or 10 days the first musher will pass under the finish “arch” in Nome, and up to 6 days later the last musher will arrive in Nome.

I’m going to be reporting each day from results that I find on the internet and from the live updates that are posted on iditarodinsider.com. Its kinda lame, but for an Iditarod junkie like me, hopefully it will get me through this race until I can be back up in the great white north in a year or two. I’ll also be posting back links to the audio that I recorded last year on the race, while some of it might be year specific, relistening to most of it this past week myself, there is also some pretty interesting stuff in there as well.

I’ll be back later this evening with a re-cap of the ceremonial start this morning, and a look ahead at this years race.

Me Reporting Last Year:
Me Reporting This Year: