Iditablog.com – Iditarod 2010 News and Coverage

We’re still in the early stages of this years Iditarod, and I thought it might be an approprate time to look back at one of the race’s most historic moments – a moment that is celebrating it’s 25th anniversary this year.

It was 1985, Susan Butcher and Rick Swenson had developed a friendly rivalry and after Butcher placed second several years in a row, the eyes of the world were on her going into Iditarod 1985. Butcher had to scratch early on in the race however due to a dramatic incident where a moose attacked her team in the middle of the night. The race continued on and Swenson saw an opportunity to capture a fifth victory with his rival out of the picture. It was a daring move to mush into a blizzard out of Shaktoolik that separated the champion that year from the rest of the pack and it wasn’t Susan Butcher who would become the first female champion of the Iditarod, it was Libby Riddles.

I found a VHS tape at my parents house over the weekend of a CBS News special on Iditarod 1985 hosted by Terry Bradshaw. I’ve posted the last portion of that special here for you to enjoy. This was a moment that helped make the Iditarod what it has become today, and played a big part in thrusting the race onto the world’s stage.

hit “read more” to watch the video
Read more…

I’m taking a quick break from my normal “off-season silence” to share with you an article I wrote for my personal blog.  While I don’t talk about the Iditarod, it is about Nome and how Nome is viewed on the national stage – something that primarily happens Iditarod time.  I’m looking forward to the upcoming racing season and continuing to expand Iditablog’s coverage of sled dog mushing.

We all remember the “Blair Witch Project” which is now famous for it’s shaky camera antics that produced hundreds of parodies in a pre-YouTube era. What most of us aren’t as quick to remember was the creative way in which the movie helped pioneer viral marketing. The Blair Witch Project was quietly, and slowly sold as a true documentary about a film crew. By the time the movie came out it wasn’t taken with much skepticism when it presented itself as using real footage from the making of the documentary. Eventually we all learned it wasn’t real – none of it….

NBC Universal is hoping to fool Americans into theaters again this fall by releasing another movie that is trying to virally bill itself as being a true story, when really its all made up once again. “The Fourth Kind” starring Milla Jovovich comes out in November and according to the recently released trailer “dramatizes actual events” surrounding disappearances in Nome Alaska….blaming the disappearances on alien abductions. Jovovich even introduces herself at the beginning of the trailer as an actress and tells the camera that “every scene in this movie is supported by archived footage.”

It’s true that there have been a handful of disappearances in Nome, and its true that they were investigated by the FBI a few years back – but the problem with this movie is that tragic stories, often of Inupiat and Siberian Yupik villagers from neighboring communities are used to fool the audience and these true stories are distorted into events that never happened. Melanie Edwards a Vice president of the regional non-profit Kawerak, which helped push for the FBI investigation into 50 years of disappearing Native Alaskans in Nome tells the Anchorage Daily News that “It’s insensitive to family members of people who have gone missing.”

I’d encourage you to read the excellent ADN article by Kyle Hopkins, here are a few highlights:

Read more…

With Lance Mackey now on the trail having left White Mountain - we can start to guess as to what time the first musher will arrive.  Usually it’s a 10 hour trip to Nome, which would put Lance at the finish line around Noon to 12:30pm ADT.

About an hour before the first musher crosses the finish line, you can get online and listen to “Iditablog live pre-race coverage”.  Live special guests, your listener questions, and a ‘09 trail recap will take us up to the live finish from Nome.

Until the live broadcast begins, you can listen to the “Best-of Iditablog Podcasts” which include archived Iditarod finishes going back to 2005, this year’s prior podcasts, and some other fun surprises.  The “Best-of Segments” will stop airing a half hour before the live broadcast begins.

Listen by clicking “play” in the box below, or (click here) to open in a new window.

The Discovery Channel announced last week that “Toughest Race on Earth: Iditarod” is moving to Fridays at 8pm ET/PT starting Tomorrow – Friday, November 7. Iditarod will be paired with a new season of “Survivorman”…should be a great opportunity for more people to catch the race!

For a short summary of tomorrow’s episode, see below – we’ll also be back tomorrow evening with a re-cap, and a preview of next week’s show.  Make sure you don’t miss this opportunity to catch all the inside action of the Iditarod as over the next 3 weeks we see what it took to become 2008’s champion.

Friday, November 7th
With most teams now in their 24-hour break, Lance Mackey and Jeff King make up for time lost. Mackey is the first to Checkpoint: Ruby, leaving King both confused and frustrated. King devises a plan to win the race: He will let the returning champ lead and thus expend precious energy breaking trail. Rookie Darin Nelson becomes the latest musher to withdraw from the race — a sick dog team breaks his will to continue, and he chooses to scratch. Meanwhile the Buser family separates to allow former champion, Martin, a shot at the gold. It’s now a race to the coast along the mighty Yukon.

Another great episode of “Toughest Race on Earth: Iditarod” just finished up tonight, and will start re-running throughout the next week in true basic cable fashion.  A piece of the show that I enjoy is the opportunity to see the mushers and the dogs up close.  There are little personality quirks that I’ve noticed at the checkpoints over the years that I think also come out during this show, its kinda fun.  I did notice today and was disappointed by the fact that this episode didn’t focus as much on the back of the pack as previous episodes have, thats been one of the advantages of this show compared to the ones on “Versus” in March, the chance for a more holistic view of the race.

Looks like there will be no new episode next Tuesday, I can only assume its because most of us will be watching election coverage.  The next episode premiers on Nov. 11th, make sure you tune in.

Here are our “re-blogs” from the section of the trail that was covered in tonight’s show.

Iditarod 2008, Episode 3: McGrath – Cripple

1. Takotna: 24-hours of Confusion – The pack thins out
2. Ophir: 24-hour Check-up
3. Ophir: The 24-hour Choice
4. Cripple: Big Day for DeeDee & Details on the Ruby Award

I’m working on a big blog entry to post after this show finishes up to quickly catch everyone up on what has transpired since last march in Iditarod news… and what we know about Iditarod 2009!

Just like I mentioned last week, its so fun to be watching this race again on the Discovery Channel.  I’m impressed with the small details that they are able to portray in just an hour long program each week.  It was fun to see some of the “sled-cam” shots of mushers in the middle of nowhere, and great to hear some of the stories that don’t always make it back into the newspaper the next day.  This episode covered some of the most treacherous terrain of the entire race, when looking at a map they didn’t cover much ground but a lot of exciting things happened while mushers were out on the trail.

This week we’ve got more “re-post” coverage of the 2008 Iditarod, allowing you to follow along reading our coverage from the period of the race that was shown in tonight’s second episode on the Discovery Channel.

Iditarod 2008, Episode 2: Rainy Pass – Nikolai

1. Rainy Pass: Into Rainy Pass & The GPS Impact

2. Rohn: Backen is Back!

3. Nikolai: The lead pack will change into Nikolai

4. Nikolai: Mackey out of Nikolai, Garnie out of the race

I just watched the first episode in the Discovery Channel’s new series “Toughest Race on Earth: Iditarod”.  As a fan of the race for years and as someone who spends time following every moment while the race is in full swing it was fun to watch the sport from this perspective.  I’ve never quite been happy with how the Iditarod has been covered in the national media (a part of the reason I’ve continued this blog).  This is such an amazing sport with such amazing athletes… nothing has ever quite “gotten it” when trying to tell the full story.  I think Discovery is well on its way to being the first mainstream show to fully capture the race and its competitors.

Over the next few weeks as the show airs, I’ll be going back providing links to the posts that I wrote during the period of the race that happened during each episode.  For those of you who didn’t follow along last March, you’ll get to re-live how we saw the race unfold… you’re seeing it on TV, but now you’ll get one more perspective as if it was happening all over again.

Iditarod 2008: Ceremonial Start – Rainy Pass

1. Anchorage: The Race is on!

2. Willow: The 2008 Breakdown

3. Yentna: Goodbye Willow – Hello Alaskan Wilderness

4. Rainy Pass: Into Rainy Pass & The GPS Impact

Let us know what you thought of the Iditarod show on Discovery this week…. post your comment below!

I’ll be back next week with more thoughts and a repost of the next series of blogs! (of course you can always read ahead too!).