Mush!

Think “Balto.”
Alaska’s Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race is called “The Last Great Race on Earth.”
The Iditarod began in 1973 as an event to test the best sled dog mushers and teams, and has evolved into the highly competitive race it is today.
The annual race commemorates the heroism of dog mushers and their faithful hard-driving dogs in delivering diphtheria vaccine 674 miles to epidemic-stricken Nome in 1925. It also honors the pioneer heritage of the 49th state.   
The roughly 1,150-mile Iditarod race begins this Saturday.
Melanie Jascoviez of Clarks Summit is a fan.
So is her aunt, Velma Miller of Newton Township.
The relatives traveled to Alaska last year to see the ceremonial start of the race in Anchorage, in south-central Alaska.
This year, Jascoviez will follow the Iditarod through the Internet and on TV.
But next year, the travel agent hopes to lead a local expedition to see the race begin, as well as the Northern Lights and other sights. Highlights of the nine-day trip include skiing, snowshoeing and dog mushing in the Alyeska Resort, swimming in the natural hot springs at Chena and visiting the Aurora Ice Museum.
The private, escorted tour includes a breakfast lecture with a musher, attending a mushers’ banquet and watching as they pick their starting spots.
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Jascoviez first went to Alaska when she was 18 after her older brother Troy moved there with his wife Rachel.
“I just fell in love with Alaska, with the beauty, the people and the way of life,” she said at Odyssey Travel Agency, 320 Northern Blvd.
“I’ve been there a dozen times and I’ve only seen a third of the state,” she said.
She and her husband Mark went to Alaska for their honeymoon in 2005. They rode a small plane to Mt. McKinley/Denali (elevation 20,320 feet) in Denali National Park. They had to wear oxygen masks when the plane flew over 13,000 feet. “It was amazing,” she said.
Until last year, she had never been in Alaska in the winter. But she wanted to see the Iditarod.
Her husband couldn’t get the time off. But her aunt could, and did.
Miller had been to Alaska three times in the early 1970s. She called the state “gorgeous.” One of her past trips was over Christmas. “It was cold,” she recalled.
But for Jascoviez, traveling in winter meant “There’s a lot more to pack.”
All in all, however, “It wasn’t much different than it was in Clarks Summit,” she said.
The daytime temperatures were in the low 20s and there were 11 to 12 hours of daylight. “I was pleasantly surprised,” she said.
Her brother and his family also went with them to see the Iditarod ceremonial race start in Anchorage.
The number of race volunteers impressed her, she said. Each of the 67 teams (of more than 1,000 dogs) had one or two volunteers holding the lead dogs as the teams processed through the streets. Left to stand, the dogs howled and jumped in place as though they had springs on their bootied feet.
Along with other requirements, all the race dogs must wear booties to protect their paws.
Jascoviez said the late Susan Butcher, who won the Iditarod four times, “is revered, like, say, Joe Paterno.”
For a fee, non-mushers have the opportunity to ride in a race sled during the “show” part of the event. The money helps defray costs.
But corporate sponsorships are evident, even on some sled dog coats.
The fastest winning time — eight days, 22 hours, 46 minutes and two seconds — was set in 2002 by four-time Iditarod winner Martin Buser. But most teams of 12 to 16 dogs and their mushers reach Nome, on the western Bering Sea coast, in 10 to 17 days.
During the week before the Iditarod, Anchorage annually holds a winter festival called “Fur Rondy” (short for rendezvous), Jascoviez said. It features winter sports, native art and culture, lots of events and, “no word of lie, a Ferris wheel,” she said.
Last year, her aunt said she finally got the chance to do something she had always wanted: go snowshoeing.
But she and Jascoviez got a bit more adventure than they expected.
They had rented snowshoes at Alyeska Resort and were on a trail when someone said a dog sled team was coming behind them. It was a joke, Miller said she thought. But when she turned around, a team was barreling down on them.
“We ran off the trail,” she said with a laugh. “We moved.” She said she and her niece “laughed a lot” about their close call.
They later learned the musher and his race dogs were practicing.
For more information, call Jascoviez at 587-2244 or e-mail her at mjtravel13@yahoo.com.

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