By Ella and Chase
To start our sixth day, the group had breakfast in our hotel between 8-9 a.m., featuring the traditional eggs, potatoes, French toast pancakes, and a few other options. The dining room featured a beautiful view of the Alaskan mountain range.
Following an early start to the day our first stop was the Iditarod headquarters in Willow, Alaska.
Before entering the building there’s a bronze sculpture of Joe Redington, who we learned was a pioneer in the sport of sled dog racing. He was known as the “father of the Iditarod” because of his efforts promoting the race helping it become the largest race in Alaska. He is always acknowledged because his efforts to get people to come and raise money has made the event international. As a competitor he never won, but he competed in 17 races and placed as high as 5th at age 72.
The Iditarod headquarters showcases many past champions and some of the most successful dogs and pays tribute to the efforts of the dogs. One of the largest showcases was for six-time champion Dallas Seavey. Dallas holds the fastest record ever at just 7 days and a few hours for a near two-week race. He won 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2021, and 2024 and showcased elite skill and strategy over decades.
The acknowledgment of the Huskies was a highlight because after seeing how hard the dogs work in person at Dallas Seavey’s dog kennel, we know how important the union of the dogs and the mushers are in the Iditarod. The two featured dogs were Andy and Togo, two champion pedigree dogs that have immense success and longevity as lead dogs.
Andy is an Iditarod champion who was an active leader in 4-5 of his owner Rick Swenson’s championship runs.
Togo triumphed through a blizzard and led his team of dogs to Nome to deliver an antitoxin. He was honored for his help fighting the Diphtheria Epidemic. Again, this shows that dogs did more for Alaskan culture than just providing entertainment in races because they saved lives.
After we left the Iditarod Headquarters, we headed over to Turkey Red for lunch. We got to Turkey Red around 12:45 p.m., and we all sat down and conversed. For lunch, we were all given the option of three different sandwiches to choose from to eat. Turkey Red was located in the more popular area of Palmer and had a beautiful view of the mountains from every angle once you walked outside.
From lunch, we took a short bus ride over to the Musk Ox Farm located in Palmer. Once we arrived, we were welcomed by our tour inside of the building. In the building, there were statues of musk oxen, bones from musk oxen, horns, hooves, and fur samples, and facts about the musk ox.
A fact that we learned during the first part of our tour was that musk oxen are closely related to goats, and both male and female oxen have horns. The horns on the oxen head protect their brain from headbutting, something we saw later in real time.
We also learned that their horns reach their full size by the time they are 5 years old. Our tour guide than took us outside to see the oxen. There were a lot of different pens that we saw, the first one being the boys’ pen. We got to see many oxen, but the one that was interacting with us the most in this pen in particular was named TNT.
Then we headed over to the next pen, which was the girls’ pen. Again, there was one female ox in particular that interacted with us the most, and her name was Lady. Lady was trying to get out of the pen the whole time and was very food motivated just like most of the oxen. After that pen, we headed over to another one and got to see two oxen fighting. They would back up slowly and then ram into each other. This is very common for oxen and was very cool and interesting to actually see in person.
After the ox farm, we traveled down to Anchorage and headed off to Wild Scoops ice cream parlor! There was a range of flavors that we all enjoyed.
After this we got back to our hotel and checked in. We had some down time to get ready, relax, and then walked to dinner at the Gumbo House. There we had a build-your-own tacos buffet, which was very good! We came back to the hotel afterwards and had our daily check-in meeting. Afterwards we hung out in the lobby.