by Jane Blaile

Actually, the 2008 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race has already started for many! What? Is this a change? No, once the 2007 race ended and the dogs and mushers rested some, they began their summer training for next year’s race. And on Saturday, June 30, the musher sign-up takes place at Iditarod Headquarters, Wasilla, AK. It’s here where last year’s finishing rookies are now veterans, last year’s new champion signs up to vie for a second win, scratched mushers are no longer out of the race, and some mushers have the North Star in their eyes thinking about multiple championships 2,3,4, or even 5 times! And here the cycle of anticipation, training, goal reaching, planning, and excitement recurs. Not only the mushers and their families are affected, of course. People of all areas feel the “tingle of the trail”, like the thousands of volunteers that work each year at checkpoints, or for the Iditarod Air Force, as veterinarians along the trail, and villagers who welcome all Iditarod persons into their lives. And another group of people is VERY excited…teachers all over the world. June 30 is the final day of the 2007 Iditarod Summer Educator’s Conference. Teachers from all over the country will arrive in Wasilla to spend a week immersed in Alaska and the Iditarod. There will be authors, speakers, and even time working in a dog yard; how more immersed can you get? They are here to learn more about incorporating the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race into their curriculum – exciting, motivating, and standards based lessons that appeal to students of all ages, and their families!

What will happen prior to the sign-up picnic? Check in to read and see what these teachers are doing as they find common threads between themselves and the people, places, and ways of Alaska.