Iditarod and The Hold Steady

This past weekend marked the end of the Fur Rondy festival. And Fur Rondy goes out with a bang – a 1,000 mile, trans-Alaskan bang – the Iditarod.

The Iditarod started in the 1970s to commemorate the importance of the sled dogs in the history of Alaska. Not only Balto leading the other sled dogs to Nome with the diphtheria serum, but also the dogs used in travel, mail delivery, and as part of scouting teams during World War II. Prior to airplanes and snowmobiles (or snow machines, as they are called here) dog sleds were the way to travel around rural Alaska.

The start of the Iditarod in Anchorage is ceremonial, but so fun. They start on 4^th Avenue in downtown Anchorage and eventually make their way 11 miles across town to the Campbell Airstrip.

The dogs are so excited to get going that they have to hook the sleds up to snow machines or the dogs will take off before it’s their turn.

While I enjoy the festivities of the start downtown, my favorite part is going out to the trail as it winds through Anchorage. You can stand right on the trail and cheer as the teams go by. There is something so amazing about knowing that in 8 or 9 days a good portion of the people and dogs are going to be 1,000 miles away, approximately the same distance as LA to Seattle, and they will have gotten there on foot (relatively speaking).

This week's hot jam is Certain Songs by The Hold Steady. The Hold Steady is a gritty indie-rock band from Minneapolis, and I love all their songs so it was really difficult to pick one to feature this week. But nevertheless, I went with Certain Songs. Lead singer, Craig Finn, has a weird talk-singing style and most of the band looks like mid-level government employees (Franz Nicolay, the former keyboardist, looks more like he should be tying ladies to train tracks) but somehow it works.