John Beargrease Dog Sled Race John Beargrease Dog Sled Race The John Beargrease Sled Dog Race is a dogsled race held along the North Shore of Lake Superior in northeast Minnesota. At 400 miles, it is the longest sled dog race in the lower 48 states. The "Beargrease" is a qualifier for the famed Iditarod race in Alaska. The name of the race honors John Beargrease, a winter mail carrier who traveled by dog sled between Two Harbors, Minnesota and Grand Marais, Minnesota during the last two decades of the nineteenth century. The race has been held every January since 1980. See "John Beargrease: Legend
Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race Avenue and D Street in Anchorage and in smaller numbers at the checkpoints along the trail. The race's namesake is the Iditarod Trail, which was designated as one of the first four US National Historic Trails in 1978. The trail in turn is named for the town of Iditarod, which was an Athabaskan village before becoming the center of the Inland Empire's Iditarod Mining District in 1910, and then becoming a ghost town at the end of the local gold rush. The name "Iditarod" may be derived from the Athabaskan "haiditarod", meaning "far distant place". Portions of the Iditarod Trail