Report Content.....A-4 Report Content -- Amplification.....A-5 Enclosure B -- COMMANDERâS OPERATIONAL REPORT (OPREP).....B-1
It's a competition that pits one dog driver, called a musher, and a team of dogs not only against other racers but against the (often cruel) forces of Â­Mother Nature. Named for a town in Alaska, the race ceremonially sets off from downtown Anchorage, Alaska, on the first Saturday in March.
Every year in March, Nome hosts the finish of one of the toughest sled dog races in the world. The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race is a 1,049 mile trek through some of the most extreme wilderness in the nation. The first Iditarod race was held in 1973 and has been extremely popular ever since. During the finish of the race Nomeâs population grows by approximately 1,000 people and turns Nome into what people everywhere warmly refer to as the âMardi Gras of the Northâ.