Pandemic precautions hit Iditarod
Author:
Mar 10, 2021
Linwood Fiedler leaves Takotna, Alaska, Thursday, March 12, 2020, during the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. (Loren Holmes/Anchorage Daily News via AP)
The most noticeable change this year will be no spectators
Mark Thiessen
Associated Press
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Traveling across the rugged, unforgiving and roadless Alaska terrain is already hard enough, but whatever comforts mushers previously had in the world’s most famous sled dog race will be cast aside this year due to the pandemic.
In years past, mushers would stop in any number of 24 villages that serve as checkpoints, where they could get a hot meal, maybe a shower and sleep — albeit “cheek to jowl” — in a warm building before getting back to the nearly 1,000-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.