Iditarod Racer Visits Central Library

Two runners of perhaps the most exciting and famous endurance race on Earth visited the in Manassas Sunday.

Professional dog musher Karen Land and her Alaskan husky, Borage, are runners of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, which begins the first Saturday in March each year.

 As the powerful dogs and their mushers made their way across the Alaskan wilderness thousands of miles away,  Land spoke to an audience filled with children and dog sled enthusiasts about the 1,150-mile race.

 The Iditarod was first held in 1973 to honor the life-saving work of thousands of dogs and mushers who carried medicine across Alaska to  remote villages that were in need.

 Land said the route varies each year because so many small towns and villages want to be part of the event.

 Racers stay on track with the help of wooden markers that show them the way to go, she said.

 “If they think it’s a place where you tend to get lost, then they’ll have thousands of them (out),” Land said.

 Dog teams who are near the back of the racing pack tend to get lost the most, because teams passing before them  knock down some of the wooden markers, she said.  Getting lost is now far less common because global positioning systems are now used, she said.

 The most desired type of sled dog is the Alaskan husky.

 “Alaskan husky is a fancy name for a mutt,” Land said. “They are mixed with anything and everything. These dogs are bred to run the race.”

 Borage’s grandfather was a hound, she said. It is becoming increasingly common for Alaskan huskies to have hound parents or grandparents, because the traits of that breed are desirable to mushers.

 Some Siberian huskies run the Iditarod, but they are usually at the back because they are a lot slower, she said.

 Many of the dogs are thin, but not because the owners restrict their food intake, but because the dogs burn so many calories as they run.

 Most mushers know exactly how many calories their dogs burn so they can replace the lost by feeding them enough high-calorie foods, Land said.

 Borage weighs about 50 pounds, she said.

 It is better for a sled dog to be slim because they don’t have extra weight slowing them down, Land said.

 Additional body weight can put pressure on the joints and increase the chance for injuries, she said.

 Every dog on her team usually wears booties on their feet as they race, not because their feet get cold, but to protect the skin between their toes,  she said.

 “Snow is like glass when it’s really cold,” she said.

 Land said at a $1 per bootie, she easily spends $2,000 on booties per race.

 It is very expensive to run the Iditarod, because of the cost of supplies, transportation and other things, she added.

 The prize for finishing first place in the Iditarod is about $69,000 but that isn’t a lot of money, because the race and race preparations are so costly, she said.

 Winning dogs can be bred ,which is a source of income for some mushers, she said.

 Litters are normally named in themes so the owners and mushers can easily keep track of their dogs’ heritage, she said.

 For example, Borage is of the Herb litter, she said.

 “His mother is Gin, so you know what that litter was,” Land said.

 Puppies who grow up to lead dog sled teams can exhibit the traits of a leader early in life.

 Dogs who don’t like to follow other dogs, or who are always looking around and over the shoulders of the dogs running in front of them, usually make great leaders, she said.

 Smarts are also important, she said. One of her former lead dogs was a border collie mix,—a breed known for intelligence.

 Lead dogs follow voice commands from their mushers, she said.  “Gee” means to turn right, while “haw” means to turn left, Land said.

 Land, a native of Indiana, said she fell in love with sled racing because of a dog named Kirby, whom she met and later adopted while she was working for a vet in college.

 Kirby was a Catahoula, a type of dog bred for hunting boar and bear in Louisiana.

“He was a great dog. He was wild when he was young … but he ended up being a well-mannered dog, she said.

 Kirby required a lot of exercise and so she started spending more time outdoors, which eventually led to her becoming a musher, Land said.

 This was Land’s second year speaking at the Central Library.

 For more information about Land and her dogs, visit her website  mymusher.com.