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Iditarod Trail Mail
Educational Project
General Concepts & Instructions
This is to give the teacher some indication of just what should
be included &/or required in an Educational Project to travel
via Iditarod Sled Dog & Musher (cachets) over the Iditarod
Trail during the race which starts the first Saturday in March
every year.
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The document(s)
should not exceed 8.5" wide and needs to be folded to fit
the packet of mail, no larger than fitting a standard legal
size envelope (4.5" x 9.5"). Anything larger will
suffer damage on the trail. your (students) project will be
vacuum sealed along with the 50 pieces of Official Trail Mail
that the musher carries for the race's promotional purposes.
- The project can involve a student
reading program; so many pages read by the student per mile of
the trail, charting their reading success on a map of the race
trail or a book per checkpoint; "Race Against Death"
etc., many Iditarod books available. With younger classes a collage
of student made pictures put together by the class has traveled
the trail and older classes have put together collection of the
best student written poetry. You can let your mind fly on this
one, no matter how you make the students get involved. A contest
for the best projects meeting an educational requirements has
been used. With prior acceptance, we can take more than one entry,
but we have a limited amount of time to get this all together
prior to race time. We finish packaging the mail two days before
the race start.
- The project must reach this address:
Iditarod Educational Trail Mail Project
c/o Leo B. Rasmussen
PO Box 2
Nome, Alaska 99762-0002
- The project should include a space
prescribed for the witnessing signatures of the
- Mayor of Nome
- Official "End of
the Trail Checker"
- Two students of the Nome
Public School system
- Vacant place for a U.S.
Postal stamp to be applied
- Cancellation in Nome at
the U.S. Post Office on the day and date of that mail/project
arriving in Nome by the Musher off the trail. Remember
that the trail is Congressionally authorized as the
Iditarod
National Historic Trail; one of only 20 authorized
trails in the United States.
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- The project should include a space
for:
- Musher information: Number
of dogs, start & finish.
- Time to complete the Iditarod
Sled Dog Race: Days, hours, minutes and seconds.
- Mushers signature
- Musher commentary to the
student(s). Please remember that if all information
is on one side of the project, so you can frame it and
make it openly presentable/collectable.
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- We will attempt to get the information
to you as to which team is carrying your mail, but that is sometimes
hard to do. However, a call to Leo B. Rasmussen at (907)
443-2798
or fax two days after the race start can arise the current information
so the student(s) can follow their mail's progress. Further, it
must be understood that a musher may have to depart the race for
various reasons; broken arms, sick dogs, equipment failure, etc.
therefore you can not know for sure that your mail will cross
the entire trail. All mail regardless of mushers completion of
the race does eventually come to Nome and then will be cancelled
the day after the race completes/officially finishes showing that
it has too, officially participated in the race.
- Any further questions? (907)
443-2798
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