Dan Seavey

Great article by Bill Gallea for the Ultimate Iditarod site, titled "Remembering the First Iditarod":

The first race began at what is now the Tozier Track in Anchorage, where a system of trails exclusively for dog mushing is maintained. There was no trucking of dogs around the Knik Arm of Cook Inlet. The teams ran continuously to Nome, going over bridges as necessary.

The mushers wore no headlamps. But yet they did run at night, mushing by the moonlight. There was a tendency to run more during the day than at night, but not completely. The only light Dan Seavey carried in the '73 Race was a C-cell flashlight in his pocket!

Great article, lots of good information on the first race!

Dan Seavey

A bit of family history from the Seavey's Ididaride website:

Dan and Shirley Seavey moved to Seward, Alaska, from central Minnesota in 1963. After surviving the 1964 Good Friday Earthquake, Dan began to raise and train sled dogs.

In 1973, Dan Seavey, along with a number of fellow dog mushers, helped Joe Redington, Sr. found the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, a 1,150-mile sled dog race from Anchorage to Nome. Dan competed in the first and second Iditarod races placing third and fifth respectively. The three weeks spent on the trail to complete those first Iditarod races were huge tests of endurance and fortitude for both the mushers and the dogs.