ARCHIVED EDITIONS - NAVIGATION INSTRUCTIONS:
LINKS ARE LOCATED AT BOTTOM OF EACH PAGE. THEN GO BACK TO SAME LINK MENU TO ACCESS EACH ARTICLE IN THAT ARCHIVED EDITION
IDITAROD RACE PIONEER
Interview with Rod Perry
Alaska’s fabulous Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, internationally famed as The Last Great Race on Earth, each winter renews its place as the most glittering spectacle on the world’s northern sports stage. The first Saturday every March, Anchorage’s downtown pulsates in a wonderful bedlam. More than a thousand eager sled dogs, crazed to be off, overflow the air with their near-deafening frenzy of barks and howls. Scores of intrepid drivers hurriedly load sleds and harness teams. Spectators from around the globe swarm by the tens of thousands to take in the action. At two minute intervals teams in their turn move up to the 4th and B Street starting line and they’re off.
Ahead lies more than a thousand miles of some of the most spectacularly beautiful, yet formidable sub-arctic wilderness in North America. Over the mighty Alaska Range. Through the daunting Interior where temperatures can plunge low enough to put out a lit match. Down that mighty river of legend, the Yukon. Along the blizzard-lashed edge of the Bering Sea ice pack to finish in the famed gold rush town of Nome. It is indeed a race for the ages.
The Iditarod was launched in 1973 amidst a climate of skepticism that something so audacious could be pulled off. But Rod Perry and 36 others were drawn as a moth to a flame. Daring to fail, they went out with the entire fate of the race riding with them. Their success began today’s entire Iditarod phenomenon. Today, Rod is one of only eleven original finishing mushers left. They alone can tell in first person the stories of that greatest Iditarod Race adventure of all time.
Adventure seekers and outdoorsmen, do your nostalgic dreams often take you back to pioneering movements in America’s past? Join us in reading and sharing this Q&A article with your family members and friends to bring the rich founding history of Alaska’s Iditarod Race into your living room. But why just read about this event when you can also take part either as a spectator or participant!
Learn More!