Lived in Alaska for a few. I’ve heard of it.
I’ve heard of it… but then for a time I lived in a small town in Ontario that had its own dogsled races…
I have, but I can easily see how someone not from the US or Canada may not have.
Yup, heard of it. I can remember hearing about it back in grade school.
In fact, someone I went to high school with does the Iditorod.
I’m not American, and have a minimal interest in sports. I happened to hear of the Iditarod, from a friend in the States with whom I corresponded; said correspondence happened to touch on the subject of gooey romantic fiction, whence a small bit of wordplay involving different meanings of “mush”.
I think of the “average American” from CONUS, maybe 30-40% have some basic knowledge of the Iditrod.
It was a lot of fun! Highly recommended, but then again it’s not for everyone. We did the ceremonial start in Anchorage, the real start in Willow the next day, flew out to a checkpoint the day after that (watching teams enter, rest and feed their dogs, and continue racing), and then went to Nome for the finish about 8 days later.
Chefguy had lots of good recommendations and his guidance helped to make it “the best vacation ever!” (in my wife’s words). We enjoyed it so much that we’re thinking about going again, maybe next year or 2021. In 2022 it’ll be the 50th running of the race, which will be a big deal up there.
Kuskokwim? This year’s winner, Pete Kaiser, hails from Bethel AK near the mouth of the Kuskokwim River.
Always used to love it when the Native fellas won the sprint races when I was a kid. One of the most famous Native racers was George Attla, from Huslia (pronounced HOOSE-lia). He was known as the “Huslia Hustler” and was saddled with the handicap of having one leg that was fused at the knee. But man, could he fly.
Yep. Not only the Iditarod, which I can’t remember not knowing about, but also Yukon Quest. Yukon Quest is also 1000 miles and runs from Fairbanks to Whitehorse one year and Whitehorse to Fairbanks the next. I know this one because a friend is involved with it every year at Mile 101 Checkpoint.
The Barkley Marathons is widely considered to be the most difficult footrace in the world. The race has been completed only 18 times by 15 runners since its inception in 1986. The race is limited to 40 competitors each year so 18 finishes in roughly 920 starts. There are now several documentaries about it and about individual attempts, but I recommend The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats Its Young from 2015.
Missed the edit window: The movie is available free with Amazon Prime; that’s where I first saw it a few years ago.
In elementary school we had to read a Gary Paulsen book about the Iditarod and I remember it because I didn’t really like the book so I was unhappy
Too bad it wasn’t written by Pat Paulsen eh.
I thought that, among mushers, the Yukon Quest was the far more prestigious of the two? If not the one that brought in all of the sponsorship money.
There’s probably some race across half of Siberia that’s even more prestigious, if anyone had ever heard of it.
The Wiki explanation of the race is hilarious. The race starts when the starter lights a cigarette. 
I’ve heard of it, but the extent of my knowledge is that it is a long endurance-style dog race in Alaska.
So it’s not surprising if some people have never heard of it at all.
You should have asked “do you know what the iditarod is” because I’ve certainly heard of it but I couldn’t have told you what it was before reading your post.
So familiar to me (since childhood) that this song gets stuck in my head sometimes.
NM
There’s also an Iditarod Monopoly edition that’s now out of production. I made some good money selling them to teachers on eBay. A couple of the bidding wars went up to $90 for a $20 game. Still have my own copy.
I’ve heard of it, but I’m honestly surprised that it is such common knowledge. It came up as a question at my local pub trivia a few weeks ago, and I think only half of the people in my group had heard of it. I watched a documentary about it at a film festival once, but is it really something that gets regular media coverage?