Inside the 51st Iditarod: The meaning behind the ‘Last Great Race on Earth’

The 51st Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race is concluding during the week of Mar. 13, 2023 in Nome, Alaska. The 1,000-mile race began with a ceremonial start in Anchorage, Alaska, then a restart in Willow.

Straight Arrow News spoke with a number of mushers who participated, including the 2022 champion, Brent Sass.

“The sled dog was used hundreds of years ago for transportation and moving freight around,” Sass said. “And it comes from the Siberian Huskies and the Malamutes–all those big, northern dogs. But those dogs were good for hauling freight and surviving the weather and the winters, but they weren’t fast. And so over the years, as racing became something that started happening probably 50, 60 years ago, then we started breeding other sorts of dogs into them, like greyhounds and all kinds of different hound dogs and stuff like that to create what we all now consider the Alaskan husky and they say it’s just basically a mutt dog.”

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