There’s a special intimacy to Iditarod checkpoints — especially the rural ones.
While cities like Fairbanks and Anchorage (and even Nome) can, with relatively little trouble, bear the brunt of added visitors — even if it tests the capacity of their hotels or restaurants, as it well may have in Fairbanks for Monday’s re-start — the small communities along the Iditarod trail feel the arrival of the race in a more profound way.
That’s perhaps especially true when half of the Iditarod checkpoints weren’t supposed to be Iditarod checkpoints at all, as is the case with the first three stopovers of this year’s race (Nenana, Manley Hot Springs, and Tanana).
On Monday, the otherwise-tiny town of Nenana — enshrouded in the bitter cold that’s typical for interior Alaska — was a metropolis of sled dogs and the humans mushing, handling, and following them.
In the photos below, explore the town and checkpoint, located 60 miles up the trail from Fairbanks and nestled on the banks of the Nenana River. (The town, and its river, are perhaps best known as the focal point of the Nenana Ice Classic, a guessing game competition in which participants predict when the river ice will begin to dissipate at the end of winter.)
For photos in galleries, click or tap through for larger versions and captions.
