Iditarod Race Start Package

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Jan 8th 2006 at 12:02PM

If seeing the Iditarod Race is on your list of things you want to do in this lifetime, the Millennium Alaskan Hotel has the package for you. They are offering a "Head Start" package which includes two nights accommodations, two tickets to the Iditarod fund-raising dinner, transportation to and from the Iditarod starting line in Anchorage on March 4, 2006 and access to the Iditarod race activities at the hotel such as the Musher’s Champagne Toast. The package also includes complimentary breakfast in-room or in the hotel’s Flying Machine Restaurant, use of the hotel’s health club with sauna, steam room and hot tub and shuttle service to the 5th Avenue Mall. The package is priced at $499 and is available for booking for the dates of March 1 – March 6, 2006. Activities for the Iditarod such as the Musher’s Champagne Toast (afternoon of March 2nd) and the Iditarod Fundraising Dinner (night of March 3rd) begin during that time period. Additional nights at the hotel are available at $139 per room, per night.

[via Travmedia]

Tags: alaska, anchorage, iditarod, millennium hotel, MillenniumHotel

Filed under: Luxury Travel & Hotels

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

B.L. Biddle Mar 14th 2006 9:46PM

Bravo for the community, mushers, veterinarians and all the worldwide fans of the Iditarod. I always notice when the www ( world wide whiners) complain about the iditarod...they never have been a keeper of one of these fine animals. They were born to run...young...old...sick ...or strong. Go find something else to whine about...Go DOG GO!

Not that I want you to think that I am uncaring or not willing to compromise on this issue of the Iditarod....you outlaw human abortion in ALL 50 states and I will be the first one to ask for the Iditarod to cease....pull that one for awhile.

Ron Winton Aug 17th 2008 1:37AM

Margery Glickman is a liar who attempted to defame my friend's good name with her efforts to convince people to boycott his business. Despite his numerous efforts to prove without a shadow of a doubt that he had never sponsored an Iditarod. He had to hire an attorney to convince her to remove his name from her website. He had never even heard of the Iditarod until he received an email from a stranger complaining about his company's name on Margery Glickman's website. She needs to get her facts straight ! She's so wicked that she never even apologized for her gross mistake in identity. A child with an average level of intelligence could have easily determined that she had identified the wrong person especially after being presented with all of the evidence that she was provided with. In my oppinion Margery Glickman's integrity and credibility leaves a lot to be desired ! She lied then and who knows what she would lie about now to further her self centered cause. It's not about the animals it's all about Margery Glickman and her ego. Why don't you do the right thing Margery and print a retraction and an apology ?

Margery Glickman Jan 8th 2006 7:22PM

People should boycott the Iditarod, a race with a long, well-documented history of dog deaths, illnesses and injuries. Millennium Hotels is morally wrong to support and promote this barbaric race.

In the Iditarod, dogs are forced to run 1,150 miles, which is the approximate distance between Chicago and Miami, Florida, over a grueling terrain in 8 to 15 days. Dog deaths and injuries are common in the race. USA Today sports columnist Jon Saraceno called the Iditarod "a travesty of grueling proportions" and "Ihurtadog." Fox sportscaster Jim Rome called it "I-killed-a-dog." Orlando Sentinel sports columnist George Diaz said the race is "a barbaric ritual" and "an illegal sweatshop for dogs." USA Today business columnist Bruce Horovitz said the race is a "public-relations minefield."

The Sled Dog Action Coalition (SDAC) was founded in 1999 to educate America about the exploitation of sled dogs in Alaska's annual Iditarod dog sled race. The SDAC and its efforts to educate people about the brutalities associated with the Iditarod was profiled in USA Today and in the Miami Herald. I am emailing copies of these and other articles.

Please visit the SDAC website http://www.helpsleddogs.org to see pictures, and for more information. Be sure to read the quotes on http://www.helpsleddogs.org/remarks.htm and on all the quote pages that link to it. Links can be found in the drop box at the top and at the bottom of the page. All of the material on the site is true and verifiable.

Iditarod dogs are simply not the invincible animals race officials portray. Here's a short list of what happens to the dogs during the race: death, paralysis, penile frostbite, bleeding ulcers, broken bones, pneumonia, torn muscles and tendons, diarrhea, vomiting, hypothermia, fur loss, broken teeth, viral diseases, torn footpads, ruptured discs, sprains and lung damage.

At least 126 dogs have died in the Iditarod. There is no official count of dog deaths available for the race's early years. In "WinterDance: the Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod," a nonfiction book, Gary Paulsen describes witnessing an Iditarod musher brutally kicking a dog to death during the race. He wrote, "All the time he was kicking the dog. Not with the imprecision of anger, the kicks, not kicks to match his rage but aimed, clinical vicious kicks. Kicks meant to hurt deeply, to cause serious injury. Kicks meant to kill."

Causes of death have also included strangulation in towlines, internal hemorrhaging after being gouged by a sled, liver injury, heart failure, and pneumonia. "Sudden death" and "external myopathy," a fatal condition in which a dog's muscles and organs deteriorate during extreme or prolonged exercise, have also occurred. The 1976 Iditarod winner, Jerry Riley, was accused of striking his dog with a snow hook (a large, sharp and heavy metal claw). In 1996, one of Rick Swenson's dogs died while he mushed his team through waist-deep water and ice. The Iditarod Trail Committee banned both mushers from the race but later reinstated them. In many states these incidents would be considered animal cruelty. Swenson is now on the Iditarod Board of Directors.

In the 2001 Iditarod, a sick dog was sent to a prison to be cared for by inmates and received no veterinary care. He was chained up in the cold and died. Another dog died by suffocating on his own vomit.

No one knows how many dogs die in training or after the race each year.

On average, 53 percent of the dogs who start the race do not make it across the finish line. According to a report published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, of those who do cross, 81 percent have lung damage. A report published in the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine said that 61 percent of the dogs who finish the Iditarod have ulcers versus zero percent pre-race.

Tom Classen, retired Air Force colonel and Alaskan resident for over 40 years, tells us that the dogs are beaten into submission:

"They've had the hell beaten out of them." "You don't just whisper into their ears, �OK, stand there until I tell you to run like the devil.' They understand one thing: a beating. These dogs are beaten into submission the same way elephants are trained for a circus. The mushers will deny it. And you know what? They are all lying." -USA Today, March 3, 2000 in Jon Saraceno's column

Beatings and whippings are common. Jim Welch says in his book Speed Mushing Manual, "I heard one highly respected [sled dog] driver once state that "�Alaskans like the kind of dog they can beat on.'" "Nagging a dog team is cruel and ineffective...A training device such as a whip is not cruel at all but is effective." "It is a common training device in use among dog mushers...A whip is a very humane training tool."

Mushers believe in "culling" or killing unwanted dogs, including puppies. Many dogs who are permanently disabled in the Iditarod, or who are unwanted for any reason, are killed with a shot to the head, dragged or clubbed to death. "On-going cruelty is the law of many dog lots. Dogs are clubbed with baseball bats and if they don't pull are dragged to death in harnesses....." wrote Alaskan Mike Cranford in an article for Alaska's Bush Blade Newspaper (March, 2000).

Jon Saraceno wrote in his March 3, 2000 column in USA Today, "He [Colonel Tom Classen] confirmed dog beatings and far worse. Like starving dogs to maintain their most advantageous racing weight. Skinning them to make mittens. Or dragging them to their death."

Iditarod administrators promote the race as a commemoration of sled dogs saving the children of Nome by bringing diphtheria serum from Anchorage in 1925. However, the co-founder of the Iditarod, Dorothy Page, said the race was not established to honor the sled drivers and dogs who carried the serum. In fact, 600 miles of this serum run was done by train and the other half was done by dogs running in relays, with no dog running over 100 miles. This isn't anything like the Iditarod.

The race has led to the proliferation of horrific dog kennels in which the dogs are treated very cruelly. Many kennels have over 100 dogs and some have as many as 200. It is standard for the dogs to spend their entire lives outside tethered to metal chains that can be as short as four feet long. In 1997 the United States Department of Agriculture determined that the tethering of dogs was inhumane and not in the animals' best interests. The chaining of dogs as a primary means of enclosure is prohibited in all cases where federal law applies. A dog who is permanently tethered is forced to urinate and defecate where he sleeps, which conflicts with his natural instinct to eliminate away from his living area.

Iditarod dogs are prisoners of abuse.

Sincerely,

Margery Glickman

Director

Sled Dog Action Coalition, http://www.helpsleddogs.org�

Jennifer O'Connor Jan 9th 2006 1:38PM

I agree wholeheartedly with Margary Glickman's comments. The Iditarod is a cruel event whose time is long gone. There are innovative and fun alternatives. Lowell, Mass., for instance, hosts the National Human Dogsled Championships in February as part of its annual WinterFest, in which dozens of teams of humans dress up in crazy costumes and race for the finish line. In New York City, the �Idiotarod� features some 500 human racers pushing shopping carts from over the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan. Everyone willing participant has a blast and no one gets hurt.

joe Jan 12th 2006 7:21PM

While looking up information on the best book I have ever read, winterdance, I have found multiple things posted by margery-multiple posts, all the same. She obviously did not read the book, as it depicts the love 99% of mushers have for their dogs-they check their feet every half hour, sleep with them, eat with them, and care for them like a mother cares for a child.(as Paulsen puts it). Margery is spreading propoganda, and I for one know, dogs love the race.

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