Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race early in the 20th century. The main route of the Iditarod trail extends from Seward in the south to Nome in the northwest, and was first surveyed by Walter Goodwin in 1908, and then cleared and marked by the Alaska Road Commission in 1911 and 1912. The entire network of branching paths covers a total of . Except for the start in Anchorage, the modern race follows parts of the historic trail. The trail is composed of two routes: a northern route, which is run on even-numbered years, and a southern route, which is run on odd-numbered years. Both follow
Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race the same trail for , from Anchorage to Ophir, where they diverge and then rejoin at Kaltag, from Nome. The race used the northern route until 1977, when the southern route was added to distribute the impact of the event on the small villages in the area, none of which have more than a few hundred inhabitants. Passing through the historic town of Iditarod was a secondary benefit. Aside from the addition of the southern route, the route has remained relatively constant. The largest changes were the addition of the restart location in 1995 and the shift from Ptarmigan to