All eyes are on the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race this week — and it seems the whole world has gone to the dogs.

The leaders in the thousand-mile race already have reached the Yukon River on their way to Nome.

Just two weeks ago, the “fastest dogs on earth” raced on a 26-mile course through Anchorage as part of the big three-day Rondy race: the Open World Championship Sled Dog Races.

These races, in addition to other races like the Yukon Quest in Fairbanks, the Kuskokwim 300 in Bethel and the Copper Basin 300 in Glennallen, reinforce dog mushing’s position as the official state sport.

So it’s no surprise that visitors and residents alike want to learn more about the dogs and the unique culture of mushing.

Whether you want to get up close and cuddle with puppies, ride on a sled behind a team or take the reins yourself, Alaska in the winter is the perfect setting.

Around the state, there are plenty of mushers who have set up shop to showcase the dogs, the sleds, the Iditarod and everything that goes along with it.

Matthew Failor is a veteran of 14 Iditarod races and a Kuskokwim 300 winner out in Bethel. He and his wife, Liz, own and operate Alaskan Husky Adventures in Willow.

Their company is steeped in Iditarod history and the race is a big part of the experience they share with visitors from around the world.

On arrival at check-in, one of Failor’s sleds is set up to give visitors an idea of all the gear necessary to run an endurance race through the wilderness. There’s a life-size mannequin that’s draped head-to-toe with the parka, the bibs, the boots and the headlamp — all part of a musher’s setup.

“The Iditarod bib is the one that Matthew wore and it’s signed by all the mushers from that year,” said Liz Failor.

Two of the crew who checked us in are mushers themselves. Lead guide Dane Baker finished the 2025 Iditarod. Jaren Ulrich, the musher who took four of us on his sled around the 2-mile course, just finished his first 100-mile race.

Another lead guide, Sam Martin, is running his first Iditarod this year, with a team from Alaskan Husky Adventures.

Visitors are encouraged to dress warmly for the weather. Still, there are plenty of coats, bibs and gloves for those who need extra layers before heading out on the trail.

“We have a few pairs of overboots that will slip on over people’s shoes,” said Liz Failor. “We have more on order, though.”

There are several options for folks to get up close to the dogs. But during March, most of the energy is devoted to getting out on the trail for a 6-mile ride. It takes between 45 minutes and an hour.

After an initial briefing to gear up and sign the waivers, would-be mushers follow their guide out to the dog yard — the beating heart of a musher’s operation.

The Failors’ kennel is split into two sections: touring and racing. The racing dogs have a more robust training schedule than the touring teams. In fact, many of the touring dogs are retired from racing. Two of the dogs on our sled’s team, Loot and Gale Force, were former race dogs.

The setup for our tour resembled those at the Iditarod’s ceremonial start. There were two sleds in tandem. One person sat up front, with the tour leader in back giving commands. Another rider sat in the second sled. On our tour, I got to be the brakeman in the back.

Our leader, Jaren, gave commands to the dogs to go right — “Gee” — or left — “Haw” — on the trail. He also had the master brake, a snow hook, to act as an anchor in the snow.

There weren’t a lot of hills on the 6-mile course, so there wasn’t much for me to do as the brake man. But Jaren was busy making sure the nine dogs on the team didn’t get tangled up.

“The optimum temperature for the dogs is between 10 and 20 degrees below zero,” said Jaren.

Although it started out cold that morning, by the time we hit the trail it was about 15 degrees above zero.

The Failors’ kennel is right off Hatcher Pass Road near the Parks Highway, so there are incredible views of Denali and Mount Foraker from the trail. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, so it was a perfect day to be out on the trail, even if it was a bit warm for the dogs.

There are a couple of scheduled stops along the trail to check on gear, pet the dogs and take pictures.

To go for a 6-mile loop on the sled with the dogs, it’s $165 per person, $145 for kids.

There are other mushers and kennels in the area, including Happy Trails Kennel, owned by four-time Iditarod champion Martin Buser. Before Matthew Failor had more than 50 dogs and a kennel of his own, he worked with Buser and raced the Iditarod with a team of Buser’s dogs. Happy Trails Kennels also offers a selection of trail rides and mush-your-own-team options.

This year, Buser’s son, Rohn Buser, again is racing the Iditarod. Rohn Buser and his wife, Alyssa, have their own kennel and tour business, Susitna Sled Dog Adventures in Talkeetna.

Farther north in Fairbanks, Trail Breaker Kennel also offers wintertime sled dog tours. The kennel was founded by Iditarod champion Susan Butcher and her husband, Dave Monson. After Susan’s death, the family still operates the kennel year-round. David and Susan’s eldest daughter, Tekla Butcher-Monson, is the lead guide and general manager.

Forty miles outside of Fairbanks on the road to Chena Hot Springs, the Last Frontier Mushing Co-op is a collection of kennels that works together to offer mushing tours on a portion of the Yukon Quest trail.

In addition to the daytime tours, the co-op offers nighttime mushing tours under the northern lights.

Given the deeper snowpack this year, there’s a good chance you can ride with the dogs well into April. Take advantage of the good weather and see a section of Alaska’s wilderness from a new perspective: from a dog sled. Mush on!

U.S. forces this week wrapped up their participation in an annual Arctic training exercise that for the first time was held in both Alaska and Greenland. Arctic Edge, which began in 2018, includes training to respond to threats that Russia — and increasingly China — could pose to the U.S. 

The portion in Greenland was coordinated with Denmark and involved both U.S. and Danish special forces. The long-planned exercise took place despite President Trump’s repeated threats this year to take control of Greenland, which is an autonomous territory of Denmark. 

According to NORAD and U.S. Northern Command, which ran the exercise, Denmark hosted the U.S. in Greenland for training focused on operating in the Arctic. Every other year, Arctic Edge takes place in the winter and this year’s was the first in recent years to take place in the dead of winter.   

“Half of the battle in exercising in the wintertime in the Arctic is simply surviving,” Royal Canadian Air Force Lt. Gen. Iain Huddleston, the deputy commander of NORAD, told reporters earlier this week.

The overall lesson of the exercise is the military must prepare units for the Arctic before they get there, according to U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Robert Davis, who is the head of U.S. Alaska Command, the Alaskan NORAD region, and commander of the 11th Air Force. 

During the training exercise, according to Davis, there are routinely aircraft that are damaged and require additional maintenance because of the lack of familiarity with practices unique to the extreme cold, like warming up hydraulic systems beforehand. Some service members try to open the window on an aircraft too soon, and the window cracks. 

“Now you can’t use the aircraft until you replace the window — so, a couple of examples of just some of the practical challenges of not operating on a routine basis, and then all of a sudden coming up into the Arctic and having to do a little discovery learning,” Davis said. 

Huddleston and Davis said the exercise did not have a theoretical adversary but had portions to defend against weapons, like the cruise missiles that only certain countries, like Russia and China, could potentially use to threaten the U.S. 

“We don’t have any intelligence that would suggest that we’re actually at risk of them launching cruise missiles against Alaska,” Davis said. “Nevertheless, we feel like we need to be adequately prepared to take the military capabilities that the U.S. government has given to us from a defensive perspective and make sure that we can put them together.” 

A smaller weapon of increasing concern to the military is the drone. In the exercise, the military practiced responding to a drone incursion at Fort Greely in Alaska. 

According to Davis, they tested scenarios including a single drone that might just be surveilling the installation as well as a small swarm of about six drones, to see if the different systems Fort Greely has were able to detect and communicate information to the Army soldiers. 

“None of the drones were completely undetected,” Davis said, adding that there are multiple types of sensors and at least one of them detected each of the drone, and none of the systems were negatively impacted by the temperature, which can plummet to -40 degrees fahrenheit. 

The U.S. forces did take down one drone, according to Davis, but used a counter-unmanned aerial system that throws a net over the drone and lowers it to the ground intact so the U.S can inspect it. 

Because the counter-drone systems at Fort Greely are mostly electronics based and don’t necessarily require batteries, which can drain quickly in the cold, the temperatures “didn’t really affect them in a negative way, which is good,” Davis said. 

He said the speed at which industry and commercial companies are modifying and changing drone technology makes it “really difficult” for the formal programs within the military to keep up. That’s a concern the Pentagon is confronting throughout the armed forces, not just in the Arctic.  

After more than 50 years of service, the Alaska Native Language Center will close its doors this summer, a victim of realigned budget priorities at the University of Alaska. Though few Alaskans may have heard of ANLC, most have likely seen its most iconic output: the Native Peoples and Languages of Alaska Map — a full-color wall map depicting the traditional territories of Alaska’s Indigenous languages. Versions still hang in schools, homes and offices across the state.

The map is no mere work of art. It reflects years of research by ANLC staff in collaboration with Native speakers from Utqiaġvik to Maxłaxaała. Language boundaries are fuzzy things; they can’t be mapped like rivers or detected using GPS. As a state-funded organization dedicated to advancing Native languages, the center was uniquely positioned to undertake this work. Since 1974 the map has been revised and reprinted dozens of times. ANLC has also produced hundreds of Native language publications, from dictionaries to storybooks to audio CDs, all distributed at cost. Thousands of students have taken Native language courses at the center, and many have gone on to lead Native language education programs in their communities.

The Alaska Native Language Center is the product of a forward-thinking Legislature that recognized the significance of Alaska’s unique linguistic heritage. On June 9, 1972, the Legislature passed SB 241 establishing the center to study Native languages, develop literacy materials, disseminate Native language literature and train language teachers. The bill received near-unanimous support in the Senate, including from then-state Sens. Jay Hammond, Willie Hensley and Don Young. Coming close on the heels of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, the founding of the center heralded a major shift in official language policy. After decades of active suppression, Native languages would now be permitted to be taught in schools.

This shift continued over the following decades. Native language courses and degree programs were created. Immersion schools and language “nests” opened across the state. Dozens of Indigenous place names were reclaimed. Alaska Native languages were granted co-official status alongside English.

Of course, this growth in support takes place against a somber backdrop of language loss. By 1972, intergenerational transmission was already declining. Many parents were survivors of boarding schools that physically punished children for speaking Native languages. Still, there are now hundreds of dedicated language advocates working to repair what was broken, to reclaim what was taken. Even the Eyak language, whose last birth speaker passed in 2008, is reawakening with new speakers.

I struggle to understand why the University of Alaska Fairbanks has chosen to end 54 years of state-mandated Native language support. Perhaps the Alaska Native Language Center is the victim of its own success, having built the foundation on which current revitalization efforts stand. But I fear that just as the center’s founding in 1972 signaled a new era of support for Native languages, its closing may bring a new era of neglect. Just as it’s easy to ignore maintenance when your vehicle is running well, it’s easy to forget the foundation that the center provides for ongoing language work across the state.

There will always be those who fear diversity, who view language as a threat. Let us hope this is not their moment. Alaska is often described in superlatives, and this is no less true when it comes to language. Alaska is home to extraordinary linguistic diversity, the birthplace of two of the world’s major language families: Inuit-Yupik-Unangan and Dene. And it is these languages, their speakers and descendants who have given shape to this magnificent land. They deserve our support.

Gary Holton is the former director of the Alaska Native Language Archive.

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