Alison Lifka, the granddaughter of Bill and Alice Lifka, of the Village of Bridgeport at Lake Miona, will participate in the Iditarod sled dog race in March in Alaska. - The Villages, FL, USA 
Residents’ granddaughter to take on Iditarod race
Alison Lifka first experienced Alaska when she was 7 years old, and she became forever enamored. The Villagers’ granddaughter received her bachelor’s degree in environmental science from Sweet Briar College in Virginia but couldn’t see herself working in any of the jobs her field presented. All she could see was Alaska, so that’s where she went.
In March, Lifka will participate in the world-famous Iditarod race, the sled dog trek from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska, with 14 of her trained Alaskan huskies.
“(Alaska) struck her fancy,” said Bill Lifka, Alison’s grandfather and a resident of the Village of Bridgeport at Lake Miona. “One of her acquaintances from college was up there conducting ocean-kayaking tours, and that’s what she started to do. She spent a lot of time outdoors as a girl, and that’s what she wanted to do, so that’s what she did.”
For the past five years, Alison has worked with a professional dog handler in Alaska and has been using that experience to run Alaskan huskies over frozen rivers and through the bitter chill of the north.
This will be Alison’s first Iditarod race as a musher, but her prior racing experience involves a 300-mile race two winters ago and a pair of races at 200 and 300 miles over the past year and a half.
View Full Article