The race is meant to commemorate and celebrate the history of Alaska and the critical part that sled dogs have played in the settlement of the state.

To many casual onlookers, the Iditarod is a weird curiosity. The famed sled-dog race, which begins this year on March 1, tasks mushers with trekking roughly 1,000 miles across the snowy Alaskan wilderness with a team of about 12 dogs,

The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race will now start in Fairbanks, not Willow, due to a lack of snow, race officials announced Monday. The last-minute change follows alarms raised by some mushers over the weekend who said stretches of the trail were not safe for their teams.