Discovering the Iditarod
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Girdwood, Alaska
Let’s face it, we don’t deserve dogs.
Now, I know that many of you may prefer the company of a feline companion instead of a canine. Heck, maybe you have a pet bird, iguana, or naked mole rat! You do you; I am not here to judge. As for me, I’ll stick with dogs. To say I am a dog lover is probably an understatement. I am my happiest when there is a dog in the room, and when there is, you may catch me lying with them on the ground instead of sitting at a table or chair like the rest of civilized humanity. Hey, I never claimed to be a lady.
With that being said, you may be surprised that out of all of the excursions I had planned while RVing across Alaska, I was probably least excited to meet the group of dogs that make up Ryan Redington’s Iditarod, sled dog team. I tend to be wary of any touristy attractions which involve live animals. One particularly painful area of the tourist business is that animal lovers are often attracted to activities in which animals are exploited for financial gain. Elephant’s backs were not meant to be ridden on by people. The chum used to attract sharks for cage diving experiences disrupts their natural feeding behavior. Posing for pictures with baby sea turtles drastically increases their stress levels and weakens their developing immune system as a consequence.
So, when my mom asked me to partake in an Iditarod adventure, in Girdwood, Alaska, I was hesitant. For those of you who are unaware, the Iditarod is an annual sled dog race where teams of 14 dogs and one musher travel the 938 miles (or roughly 1,500 kilometers) from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska. At the time, I truly knew nothing of the Iditarod, and a few hours of online research taught me the large discrepancy of opinions currently held about the race itself. Proponents of the race spoke about their deep respect for dogs, and the genuine enjoyment that they saw in their four-legged racers when competing in the sport. I was interested yet conflicted, and in a moment of curiosity, I gave the ambivalent go-ahead.
Along with his team of sled dogs, we also got to meet Ryan Redington, who is the grandson of Joe Redington, Sr., the man who created the Iditarod.
Meeting the Iditarod Team
When we showed up at the designated meeting location, we were greeted by an eccentric tour guide named Peter. Peter quickly ushered us, and roughly a dozen other participants, into the bench seats in the back of his Pinzgauer, and started driving us into the backroads of the Alyeska Mountains.
“Pop quiz,” he called out over the sound of the engine. “How would you become your favorite animal?” We all began to pass each other looks of confusion, and I started to question my choice of jumping into a vehicle with a complete stranger. Did I even have cell service out here? Would anybody hear me if I screamed??
Before my imagination prompted a full-blown anxiety attack, I heard the sound of dogs barking an eager greeting. I saw them over my shoulder, laced up to the front of a sled, jumping in excitement due to our arrival. Their tails were pointed to the sky, wagging as I stepped onto the sled. A few peaked over their shoulders in wide-eyed anticipation for their training to begin. I could barely hear the musher, Ryan Redington, as he welcomed us, his voice covered by the collection of dogs who were delighted to soon begin their day of work. Suddenly, it was as if we all passed through a wall of silence, as the brakes to the sled were released and the group of dogs in front of us united in the collective effort to move us forward. The only noise that could be heard was the rolling of the sled wheels as they carried us through wooded, scenic trails. It was peaceful and I had a sense that this was exactly what these dogs were meant to do.
Throughout the rest of the tour, Ryan taught us that the founder of the Iditarod was his grandfather, Joe Redington, Sr., a resident of Allentown, Pennsylvania which is coincidentally just a town over from where Drew and I grew up. According to Joe, the race was created as a way to cement sled dogs as a vital cultural component to the state of Alaska. He saw Alaskan residents living lonelier, colder, and less productive lives as the jobs once fulfilled by the loyal Alaskan Huskies began to be replaced by unreliable and costly machines like snow mobiles. I watched as Ryan’s face lit up when describing his sense of pride every time he finished a race with his team of dogs. At one point, someone asked him why he put himself through the discomfort, sleep-deprivation, and bitter cold that came with being an Iditarod musher. Ryan chuckled, thought for a moment, and said with a smile, “It’s all for the dogs. My admiration and respect for my pack of dogs gives me the motivation to keep going.”
I scooped up one of the Husky puppies that had started nibbling at my shoe laces, a future racer when she would be old enough. She pawed at my nose, and I, being a sucker for anything with four legs, didn’t attempt to stop her.
“So,” Peter said as he loaded us up to be escorted down the mountain, “In case you haven’t figured it out, if you want to become your favorite animal, then the best way to do that is to live with them. That is why I do what I do, because these dogs are my life, and they are my pack.”
As we loaded onto the summer sled, the team of Huskies eagerly waited for Ryan to release the brakes and let them run!
Understanding the Iditarod sled dogs
I do not claim to be an expert on dogs, animal rights, or the Iditarod. However, I will say that after my experience with Summer Sled Dog Adventures, I firmly believe that there is nothing cruel about the Iditarod. Alaskan Huskies seem most at home when they have a job to do, and the race has been able to raise nationwide awareness to the amazing capabilities of the breed. The race was designed with the dog’s safety in mind, having a team of veterinarians at every stop, requiring every musher to dress the dogs in protective foot gear, and with many of the mushers following the golden rule that they themselves will not eat until their dogs do. Still, after I returned home and was met with all 14 pounds of cuddles and kisses coming from my mixed-breed bundle of furry joy, Charlie, I was curious. What made the Alaskan Huskies so capable of thriving as sled dogs, when all my dog wants to do is nap in his, I mean my, air conditioned living room? Like always, I let my curiosity prompt a little research.
A team of Husky puppies were there to jump into our arms after our sled tour. This one, named Rose, will one day race in a team with her mother.
The original canines
Most of you are probably already aware that the dogs who many of us now recognize as members of our families all originated from the Grey Wolf. Picture Huskies, but way less snuggly. Although the exact date and location of canine domestication is debated, it is universally agreed that the event was the first animal domestication in history, and marks the beginning of what would become many millennia of interspecies companionship. Ancestors of the dogs we know and love today were most likely a subdued subset of the overarching wolf populations. The individual wolves who were less fearful of humans were the ones who were able to get close enough to camp to enjoy scraps of food and bones that humans would often leave behind. It’s likely that these less-aggressive wolves were ones who had less active adrenal glands, providing them with naturally lower levels of adrenaline and cortisol which both influence an animal’s stress response.
Overtime, as humans grew in number, wolves who had these less active adrenals, and thus had an increased tolerance for humans, gained a natural advantage over their counterparts who were not brave enough to get close enough to human camps. This deviation became enough of an advantage that the carriers of this trait were soon able to reproduce with one another in large numbers, producing pups who had increasingly lower levels of cortisol over time. For the humans of the time, having these tamed wolves clean up food particles that would otherwise attract more dangerous animal species made their presence beneficial. Canines are also fabulous workers, being able to pull large quantities of materials around camp. I think you can probably guess where I’m going with this.
Thus, we have one of the first known examples of how humans have shaped the environment enough to influence natural selection.
The Grey Wolf, shown above, is the ancestor to the canine companions we know and love today. Photo by Milo Weiler.
Selective Breeding
As the bond between man and dog became stronger, and humans began breeding the friendliest of the bunch, we got dogs with floppy ears, shorter snouts, and spotted fur coats. These traits are hallmarks of what is known as the “domestication syndrome”, which is the result that this selective breeding has on neural crest cells, a collection of cells present in the early stages of vertebrate development which diversify to form the adrenal gland, influence hair pigmentation, and produce cartilage among many other functions. Since developing embryos with less neural crest cells yield individuals with a less active adrenal gland, this decrease in neural crest cells also creates individuals with less pigmented fur and ears with less cartilage. You can also see evidence of the domestication syndrome in cats, cows, goats and pigs.
This is probably an inappropriate time to bring this up but I begged for my parents to buy me a pig as a child and was told that pigs just weren’t meant to be pets. Six-year-old Madalyn is upset to learn that my research on the topic begs to differ.
Today, the American Kennel Society recognizes almost 200 dog breeds, and that number seems to be growing almost every day with new mixes like “Papipoos” and “Beabulls” popping up for no real reason other than somebody wanting a dog that would better match their outfit. Before the shenanigans of today, dogs with specific traits were selectively bred with one another to serve unique purposes for humans. German Shepherds are the result of selectively breeding those dogs who were intelligent, good learners, and confident. As the name implies, they were originally utilized to herd sheep. Dachshunds on the other hand were bred to hunt badgers, breeding those who were long enough and skinny enough to fit into badger burrows. Today, Dachshunds are most commonly used to dress up as hotdogs on the fourth of July, but I feel us getting a little off topic here.
The point is, that the dogs we live with, and cuddle with, and share our broccoli with under the table when we were children, are quite different from the Grey Wolf, and they are quite different from the Alaskan Huskies used in the Iditarod. Alaskan Huskies were bred to be sled dogs. It then seems a sin of interpolation to picture our household pets pulling a sled through the snow and demand the sport to stop. So what is it about the Alaskan Husky that makes it capable of thriving in an environment like the Iditarod?
Don’t let the icicles on his fur fool you. In contrast to the Alaskan Husky, Charlie needs us to shovel a spot for him to pee when there is snow outside.
What Makes the Alaskan Husky Unique
It seems counterproductive to say, but the Alaskan Husky isn’t actually a recognized breed by the American Kennel Society. Rather, they are selectively bred individuals from Siberian Huskies, German Shorthaired Pointers, and Malamute-type breeds. That technically means that Alaskan Huskies are mixed breed mutts like my Charlie, and while they wouldn’t be allowed to compete in any dog shows, the greater genetic diversity found in mixed breeds makes them less susceptible to genetic abnormalities.
These dogs were bred for intelligence and are capable of learning and obeying a number of commands. They have extremely thick coats, which makes them capable of withstanding, and actually loving, the harsh winters of the arctic. They were also bred to run, and therefore LOVE it. Alaskan huskies need the opportunity to run and exercise every single day. I attribute the restlessness that I saw by the eager Husky team to this desire for running, and would dare to suggest that preventing these individuals from exercising would be more inhumane than asking them to race.
As evident from the attention and welcomed pets that we were met with after our sled dog tour, Alaskan Huskies love people. They are gentle, hardworking, intelligent, strong and fast dogs who are quite different from the dogs who likely share your comforter with at night.
After the tour, Drew bonded with a dog who shared the name of his best friend back home, Kevin.
Discover it for Yourself
The Summer Sled Dog Adventure tour takes place in the Alyeska mountains of Girdwood, Alaska. Like most Alaskan towns, you’ll find a comically small community surrounded by breathtaking scenery and shockingly delicious food. If you’re there in the summer, and know to ask the front desk of the Alyeska Resort, you’ll also find a unique experience where you’ll get to meet a team of Iditarod sled dogs, led by none other than the grandson of the Iditarod founder himself, Ryan Redington. Waiting for you here is a once in a lifetime experience of bonding with these furry racers, and a chance to learn more about the greatest race on earth. While it may be hard to imagine putting dogs in a race that can be as grueling as the Iditarod, then by all means, don’t take my word for it. See it with your own eyes. Alaska awaits! Discovering the Iditarod is only one of the many amazing things you can experience there.
We capped off our day in Girdwood with a trip up the Alyeska Aerial Tram for some fabulous views of the surrounding landscape.
Thank you for joining us at Discovery Detour, where the destination is always unknown.
