Karen Land sits with her sled dog, Noggin, Thursday during a presentation about the Iditarod race Thursday at the Crawfordsville District Public Library. - Crawfordsville, Indiana, USA 
Musher shares stories from Iditarod races
A three-time veteran of the Iditarod sled dog race shared stories from the trail Thursday at Crawfordsville District Public Library.
As her Alaskan husky, Noggin, rested on a dog bed, Indianapolis resident Karen Land showed one of the sleds her team used to make the 1,149-mile trek across frozen waterways from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska.
“We’re using rivers and running on them like they’re highways,” she said.
The race, first held in 1973, was created as a tribute to the sled dogs that delivered medicine to Nome during a diphtheria outbreak in the 1920s. Teams typically finish the course in two weeks — with stops at checkpoints and for mandatory rests. The fastest musher tackled the route in under nine days.
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