It
is called the Last Great Race on Earth
950
miles for a musher and his or her dogs to prove their worth
Racing
against cold, sleet, snow, wind and ice into and through the night
Temperatures
well below freezing with nary another human being in sight
A
better name might well be the Loneliest Race on Earth
Save
for signing in at checkpoints mostly a complete human interaction dearth
Only
sounds present in the Arctic chill the howling winds and the sound of the
runners on ice or snow
The
panting and barking of the dogs straining to make the sled faster go
It
takes a rare breed to ignore the siren call you are not going win or even place
in the top twenty or ten
Nome
seems so far away your torso wondering will you ever get warm again
This
year the total purse is down by a quarter of a million bucks
Any
musher who finishes out of the top twenty will be out of luck
Only
a $1049 finishing check
Mere
chump change for all the suffering nature did inject
Even
the winner for all his or her agony having had to endure
Will
see the prize cut by a third to fifty grand hardly for 8 plus days a sinecure
But
maybe money has never been the mushers’ lure
Rather
the knowledge that when the chips are down a musher and his dogs could endure
Alaska
in the winter is a tough unforgiving place
To
come out ahead of nature is the rationale for the Iditarod Race
©March 10, 2018 Michael P. Ridley aka
the Alaskanpoet
Alaskanpoet for Hire, Poems to Admire
Poet Extraordinaire Beyond Compare
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