Greetings!

After a long, tiring day of travel yesterday, I awoke to a beautiful, clear and sunny, but bitterly cold, day in Anchorage, Alaska. I am very excited to be here! In spite of the extreme winds, which nearly blew me off my feet a couple of times (and which I can now hear howling outside my hotel window as I write this), I bundled up earlier in the day and ventured outside into the city to explore.

Today was the final day of a three day sprint dog sled race called the Fur Rondy (short for Rendezvous), and I wanted to see the dogs come in to the finish line. You may notice that these dogs look a little different from the Iditarod dogs. Sprinting dogs are bred to run fast but don't have the endurance to run the long distances that the Iditarod dogs do. Over three consecutive days the Fur Rondy dogs run a total of 75 miles. They run 25 miles in about an hour and a half each day, which is quite different from the Iditarod dogs that run over a thousand miles in anywhere from 9 days to 3 weeks. It was a lot of fun to stand by the side of the snow covered road and cheer on the mushers and the dog teams as they whooshed by. It reminded me a lot of the Boston Marathon but with furrier athletes.

I also went to an Arts and Crafts show in downtown Anchorage where a lot of very talented artists and craftspeople were exhibiting and selling their work. Many of the sculptures by Native Alaskans depict Eskimos and animals such as bears, seals and reindeer and are carved from materials such as whale bone and walrus tusk. They are very beautiful.

I spent the last part of my day exploring the Anchorage Museum, which is a large, contemporary structure housing a spectacular collection of art and artifacts from Alaska. There were relics from Alaska's past and exhibits depicting the various native Alaskan peoples, their history, and customs. There were beautiful landscape paintings by non-native Alaskans and a great exhibit of contemporary Alaskan artwork. It was very inspiring!

Until tomorrow, all my best,
Mrs. Goldie

Hello Everyone,

The people here are very friendly. Everyone seems to smile, make eye contact and say hello, which has made me feel very welcome. There is much less traffic, so drivers seem to be more patient and relaxed. I haven't heard a single driver honk the horn, and pedestrians wait at the street corner for the walk sign. The only unfriendly greeting I've received since I've arrived in Alaska has been from the two stuffed polar bears at the airport who, judging from their ferocious expressions, did not seem to be in much of a welcoming mood!

Another wonderfully different thing I've noticed about Alaska is the light. The days aren't shorter, as I expected. As a matter of fact, the sun seems to set even later than at home. The morning light is spectacular. I took this photograph from my hotel window at 7:15 this morning, and as you can see, the street lights are still on. As the sun rises over the mountains it makes the whole city glow! Fourth grade artists, can you see the silhouette landscape in the background?

The mountains that you see ring the entire city. Last Saturday, as the plane I was flying in approached the city of Anchorage, I could see magnificent, snow covered mountains for miles and miles in every direction. There were also many large bodies of frozen water that looked like strange and amazingly beautiful crystals growing in a Petri dish. I wish I had taken pictures.

I will write again tomorrow as my adventures continue. I wish you all well,

Mrs. Goldie

Greetings once again,

This morning, on the first day of the Iditarod Teachers Conference, I listened to several interesting speakers including a man named Sonny Chambers, who, for the past ten years, has volunteered at the Koyuk checkpoint on the Iditarod trail. Koyuk is 123 miles from the finish line in Nome, and it is the northernmost point on the Iditarod trail. Sonny has many jobs as a volunteer. He "parks" the dog sled teams as they come in to the check point. He brings the teams their food, water and straw bedding and does any other necessary jobs to help out. One year the mushers came in with their dog teams one right after another, and he wasn't able to sleep for 36 hours! The 350 native Alaskans who live in Koyuk let the Iditarod volunteers use their community center as their checkpoint base, and the children love to help out.

Later in the day, we visited Jon and Jona Van Zyle at their art studio and kennel which was full of beautiful, friendly and happy Siberian Huskies. Jon twice completed the Iditarod and has been the official Iditarod artist since 1979. In 2004 he was inducted into the Iditarod Hall of Fame. Jon and Jona allowed the dogs to run free while we were visiting, and we all had a great time playing with the dogs and getting to know them. Huskies love to run and need a lot of exercise. In one photo you can see one of the dogs running on a large exercise wheel. After the visiting the kennel we were invited in to Jon and Jona's home and their art studio. Their studio looked like a museum! The Van Zyles are warm and friendly people (like their dogs), and we had a wonderful time talking with them and looking at their work.

I'll write again tomorrow.
I hope you have a great day.

All my best,
Mrs. Goldie

Hello friends at Dexter and Southfield,

Today was a fun day seeing more of Alaska as I traveled with a bus load of ardent Iditarod fans to the Iditarod Headquarters in Wasilla and the Happy Trails Kennel in Big Lake. I saw more dogs than I could possibly count! At the Iditarod Headquarters, I spent a couple of hours in the sunny and refreshingly nippy outdoors (that's code for "freezing temperatures with 30 mile an hour winds"). Today I was dressed for the cold, and, with the help of a few expensive visits to the heated gift shop, I truly enjoyed it. The mushers who will be competing in the Iditarod on Saturday were having each dog thoroughly checked by one of the many volunteer veterinarians who work tirelessly during the race to make sure that all of the dogs stay healthy. The mushers brought their dogs to the Iditarod headquarters in special mobile dog kennels. Every dog had its own private little cubby filled with straw bedding. The dogs were taken out one by one and tied to the truck while they waited to be examined by the vets. When you look carefully at the pictures you may see that most of these dogs look different than the Siberian Huskies I took pictures of yesterday at the Van Zyle's kennel.

After our time at the Iditarod Headquarters, we returned to the bus (to defrost) and traveled to Martin Buser's Happy Trails Kennel. Martin Buser is currently the musher with the most consecutive Iditarod finishes with 25 in a row. Martin was the Iditarod champion in 1992, 1994, 1997, and 2002, and has a room filled with trophies from various sled dog races. He was very warm and welcoming and spent a long time talking to us about the dogs. He even unpacked his Iditarod sled for us and explained the purpose of everything he had in it. There are about 100 dogs at his kennel, and Martin knows them all by name and even by the sound of their voices. The dogs were excited to see us and were very affectionate, especially the puppies. Since sled dogs need a lot of exercise, Martin not only had several outdoor running wheels for them to use, but he also had a giant elephant treadmill for indoor use that he bought used from a zoo. (Yes, a real elephant used this treadmill.) Several dogs can enjoy running on it, all at the same time. I would love to see that!

Warm wishes,
Mrs. Goldie

Hello Everyone,

The start of the Iditarod is almost here! Today I met and had lunch with Kelley Griffin, who I will be riding with on Saturday at the start of the race in Anchorage. Here's a picture of Kelley and me at the luncheon after we finished our pizza. Kelley is warm and friendly, and at lunch we talked for about an hour straight about animal rights, our dogs, the sheep and chickens that she raises and, of course, the Iditarod. I found out that she has about 40 of her own dogs and boards about fifty others. She cares for about 90 dogs in all. I also learned that she hates to go to the supermarket and prefers to hunt everything she eats. If she ever comes to Dexter and Southfield to visit, we'll have to warn the turkeys!

All the 2011 mushers posed for this group portrait. It was very exciting to be there. I think I expected all the mushers to be larger than life, strong as the Hulk, made of muscle and sinew, but the first thing I noticed was that this wasn't the case at all. In fact, they looked like pretty ordinary people. When I first introduced myself to Kelley Griffin and told her that I would be riding in her sled this year, she said, “Oh good. You're a small person!" Then she explained to me that since a musher wants to carry as little weight in his or her sled as possible, it's best for the mushers to be small like horse jockeys. It was a very quick lesson in understanding that physical size or appearance doesn't necessarily have anything to do with strength of character.

Tonight I attended the Iditarod Musher's Banquet. There were at least 1,600 people there to celebrate the 39th Iditarod in history and to wish all the mushers a safe and speedy race to Nome. We were entertained with country music and Iditarod tales from the past. Then I had the chance to get all the musher's signatures on the beautiful 2011 Iditarod banner that Miss Walsh made for the occasion. It looks great! Mike Williams Jr., the musher who Mr. Byrd rode with last year, was at both events today, and he says “hello!” to Mr. Byrd.

I hope the sun is shining as brightly at home as it is here in Alaska.

Be well,
Mrs. Goldie

Hello again,

Today I sat in a dog sled for the first time, just for practice. It's hard to believe that something seeming so fragile and rickety could carry anyone across Alaska. The runners are mostly thin strips of wood with removable plastic pieces. The sled bag, where the musher will keep his or her gear, and where I'll be sitting during my ride, is just a piece of fabric that rests on narrow slats. I am going to bring a pillow to help soften the bumps along the way. I'm ready for the big day! I have my down parka, snow pants, goggles, and hand and toe warmers. I hear that the weather's going to be clear and beautiful tomorrow for my 11 mile ride.

This morning, on the last day of the Iditarod Teachers’ Conference, we heard two informative and entertaining speakers. Shelly Gill, who is a well known children's book author, spoke to us about her experiences in Alaska and her time as an Iditarod musher when women were first participating in the race. You may have read some of her books such as Kiana's Iditarod, Up on Denali, and Sitka Rose. The musher, Hugh Neff, who also spoke to us, will be competing with his dogs in this year's Iditarod. In February he finished the Yukon Quest dog sled race. The Iditarod follows the trail of the 1925 serum run from Anchorage to Nome. The Yukon Quest follows the historic trail of the Gold Rush and mail delivery sled dog routes from the turn of the 20th century. Hugh and Shelly both seemed to feel that, for them, being a musher in the Iditarod, or any other sled dog race, was the easy part of life. You can listen to music on your iPod all day, nobody tells you what to do, you can eat whatever you like whenever you want, and you don’t have a worry in the world other than taking care of your dogs. Of course, what's easy for them would most likely not be so easy for most of us. Even though both Shelly and Hugh did make a musher's life sound pretty appealing, I have a feeling I'll be better off returning to Dexter and Southfield Schools to do what I love best.

I'll write to you tomorrow with the exciting details of the race start!

Be well,
Mrs. Goldie

Hello again,

This morning I rode with Kelly Griffin and her exuberant team of dogs through the streets of Anchorage and out into the surrounding woods. Late the night before, I had watched from my sixteenth floor hotel room window as trucks dumped huge mounds of snow onto 4th Avenue. When I awoke this morning, downtown Anchorage had been transformed. Crowds of spectators, dog teams, mushers, volunteers, race officials, and trucks lined the snow covered streets. The energy charged the air as handlers tried to keep the dogs calm. The dogs were ready to run! With dog teams leaving the starting line every 3 minutes, we waited until 10:39 for our team, number 20, to start the race. Kelly had lined the sled with down sleeping bags, so I nestled comfortably in and waved to the crowds as we shot out onto the course. Kelly and I threw piles of old, used dog booties to the crowd as they yelled, "Good luck, Kelly!" The spectators gave us muffins, hot dogs and drinks as we went by. Considering that the ceremonial race is only 11 miles long, and the dogs run about 10 miles and hour, I don't think we were in danger of starving! Kelly stopped her dogs several times during the race to let them eat snow. Sled dogs are happiest running in temperatures that are 40-50 degrees below zero, and since it was a balmy 20 degrees above zero during the race, the dogs were getting hot and needed the snow to cool down. Kelly's primary concern is always the welfare of her dogs. When we arrived at the finish line, the first thing Kelly and her handlers did was to water and feed the dogs. Sled dogs burn about 10,000 calories a day during a race like the Iditarod and need to eat a lot.

I am looking forward to the race start tomorrow which will be in Willow, a town north of Anchorage.

Fondly,
Mrs. Goldie

Greetings once more before I return,

The past two days have been magical! Where do I begin?

Today, at the race restart (and official start of the Iditarod) I was a spectator. After a two hour bus ride from Anchorage, on a day clear enough to see Mt. McKinley in the distance, I arrived in Willow, Alaska. I found a spot along the start of the race course with thousands of other people. We were actually standing on the frozen, snow covered Willow Lake. This location was chosen because it was smooth and flat. The day could not have been more beautiful. The sun was shining and there was, thankfully, no wind. In one of my favorite pictures, you can see one of the dog teams charging up a slight hill, moments before they were to disappear into the woods and out into the wilds of Alaska. You can also see Kelley Griffin smiling and waving to the crowds as she whooshed by us and began her journey to Nome.

All in all it has been a great trip. I had a ride during the ceremonial race start that I'll never forget. I've met some of the nicest people, and, of course, some of the nicest dogs. I've learned all sorts of new and interesting things. I learned that I could be tough in the cold, and, even though it may seem like a small triumph, I pushed myself beyond my comfort zone by driving a car in a new and unfamiliar place. Best of all, I learned that I could write about my adventure in Alaska and share it with you. I hope you've enjoyed the ride.

Fondly,
Mrs. Goldie