Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race differ by less than . The northern route first passes through Cripple, which is from Anchorage, and from Nome (ITC, "Northern"), making it the middlemost checkpoint. From Cripple, the route passes through Sulatna Crossing to Ruby, on the Yukon River. Ruby is another former gold-rush town which became an Athabaskan village. The southern route first passes through the ghost town of Iditarod, which is the alternate halfway mark, at from Anchorage, and from Nome (ITC, "Southern"). From Iditarod the route goes through the three neighboring Athabaskan villages of Shageluk, Anvik, Grayling, and then on to Eagle Island, Alaska. Ruby and
Sled dog racing the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, but it did not gain official event status. Sled dogs, known also as sleighman dogs, sledge dogs, or sleddogs, are a highly trained dog type that are used to pull a dog sled, a wheel-less vehicle on runners, over snow or ice, by means of harnesses and lines. Sled dog races include "sprint" races over relatively short distances of 4 to 100 miles, mid-distance races from 100 to 300 miles, or long-distance races of 300 to over 1,000 miles (Iditarod). Sprint races frequently are two or three-day events with heats run on successive days