What were the reasons the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race was started?
For six thousand years, sled dogs have served as the principal form of transportation for the native peoples of the north. As white settlers, gold miners, and fur trappers moved into what is today Alaska and the northern territories of Canada, they, too, used the dog team for winter transportation. When gold camps boomed in the interior, the call for mail and supply delivery in the winter months was answered by the hearty dogs and mushers. One of the major routes followed by the teams was the Iditarod Trail, which crossed Alaska from Seward on the Kenai Peninsula to Nome on the Bering Sea Coast. In the winter of 1925, a diphtheria epidemic struck Nome. The anti-serum required to stop the epidemic needed to be quickly transported to Nome, but no roads to Nome existed, ships could not sail through the pack ice, and air travel was too dangerous. The Iditarod Trail was the only answer, and a group of 18 dog teams and mushers relayed the serum 674 miles from Nenana to Nome. This is the well
