ANKERAGE, Alaska — The Iditarod, the annual sled dog race celebrating Alaska’s official state sport, kicks off Saturday with a new focus on safety after five dogs were killed and eight injured in collisions with snowmobiles while training on shared, multi-use trails.
For the first time, mushers lining up for the ceremonial start in Anchorage will have the chance to get light-up, neon harnesses or necklaces for their dogs before they begin the daylong race involving the dog-and-human sled teams approximately 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) across Alaska’s unforgiving terrain.
The 38 mushers will chart a course over two mountain ranges, the frozen Yukon River and along the ice-covered Bering Sea. In about ten days, they’ll come off the ice and onto Main Street in the old Gold Rush town of Nome for the final push to the finish line.
Mushers have always had to contend with Alaska’s deep winter darkness and whiteout conditions. But recent dog deaths, even during training, have put an emphasis on making the four-legged friends more visible at all times. Mushers typically wear a bright headlamp for visibility, but that doesn’t protect the lead dogs who run about 60 feet in front of the sled.
“I can’t make snow machines act responsibly, that’s just not going to happen,” said Dutch Johnson, manager of the August Foundation kennel, which finds homes for retired racing sled dogs. “But I can help make dogs more visible.”
Two dogs were killed and seven injured in November by a team led by five-time Iditarod champion Dallas Seavey on a remote Alaska highway used as a winter training trail. It has recently become more popular with snowmobilers, cyclists and other users, making it more dangerous for dogs.
Seavey said in a social media post that the snowmobile was traveling in the opposite direction at about 65 miles per hour when it collided with the team’s lead dogs. The snowmobile driver was later cited for negligent driving.
In December, musher Mike Parker was running dogs for veteran Iditarod competitor Jim Lanier on the Denali Highway when a snowmobile driven by a professional rider struck the dog team. Three dogs were killed and another was injured. The driver, Erik Johnson, was testing snowmobiles for his employer, Minnesota-based manufacturer Polaris, and both were cited for reckless driving.
Julie St. Louis, co-founder and director of the August Foundation, has a close relationship with the Lanier family and knew the dogs involved. While brainstorming with Johnson, they decided to use the nonprofit to help outfit the dogs with harnesses and chains.
“It was a way that we could take it a step further and do something that was still within our mission, because we are all about the safety of the dogs,” she said.
The August Foundation has since received an $8,500 grant from the Polaris Foundation and raised another $2,500 to purchase 400 light-up harnesses, which were distributed to mushers at sled dog races in Fairbanks and Bethel earlier this winter.
The harnesses glow with bright neon-like colors that help illuminate the dogs in the darkness of Alaska’s winter and pierce the snow clouds sometimes kicked up by snow machines, what Alaskans call snowmobiles.
They are now accepting donations to equip as many dog teams as possible. Providing each team with four harnesses or lighted chains and one lighted vest for the musher costs $120. A separate effort, called Light Up the Lead Dogs, is raising money to purchase lighted collars for dogs.
In each of the accidents, Johnson said the snowmobile that hit the dogs was traveling behind another snowmobile, blocking visibility by kicking up snow.
“What I’ve seen with these harnesses is that they create a halo effect in that dust,” Johnson said. “So they do give you a warning about where the lead dogs are.”
Jeri Rodriquez, the vice president of the Anchorage Snowmobile Club, said the multi-user trails are becoming increasingly crowded and all users need to do whatever they can to be seen.
Johnson will hand out the lighted armor Saturday during the ceremonial start of the Iditarod in Alaska’s largest city. The fan-friendly event features a musher taking an auction winner in his sled along an approximately 11-mile course. The real start of the race is Sunday in Willow, about 121 kilometers north of Anchorage.
The dog deaths are the latest pressure point for the Iditarod, which started in 1973 and has been hit in recent years by the pandemic, climate change, the loss of sponsors and the retirement of several major mushing champions, few of whom will take their place can take. .
The ranks of mushers competing this year shrunk even further last month as allegations of violence against women by two top mushers threw the Iditarod into disarray. Both were initially officially disqualified for violating the race’s rules of conduct. One was later reinstated but ended up scratching because he had rented his dogs to other mushers and could not assemble his team in time.
There are three former champions still in the race: 2019 champion Pete Kaiser, defending champion Ryan Redington and Seavey, who is seeking a record-breaking sixth championship.
