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Iditarod musher will speak in Culpeper Date published: 3/14/2010
BY BILL TOLBERT
During a 1997 hike along the Appalachian Trail, Karen Land picked up a book about the annual Iditarod Sled Dog Race. At nights in her tent with her dog Kirby, she would read about the famous, grueling 1,150-mile race across Alaska that's under way now. A dream was born--to one day take part in that race. Land would fulfill that dream in 2002, her first year in the Iditarod. She competed again the following two years. Now she's traveling around the country, speaking to groups about her experience. One stop on the tour is at Culpeper Library on March 28. The program begins at 2 p.m. And she's trying to make enough money to race in the Iditarod again. She speaks at schools, libraries and civic groups. During a stop in Texas on Wednesday night, she spoke by telephone about how the speaking engagements came to be. "It kind of evolved naturally," she said. "When I started running dogs, I had friends who were teachers. They'd ask me to come and do talks at their schools." And, she noted, the Iditarod actually has a curriculum set up for teachers to use with students. There is something in the curriculum that teachers can apply to almost any subject they would discuss in class. In some schools, the students pick a musher (the human driving the sled) and they follow him or her throughout the race. Other schools feature their own "Iditaread," where students read a page for every mile a musher and his or her team completes. She found that there are plenty of teachers across the country "hungry to have a real, live musher in their school. Of course, they love having a dog, too." Land's partner on her educational tour is Borage. On her Web site, Land praises the dog's patience, noting that he relishes having dozens, if not hundreds, of youngsters pet him at each school visit. "Borage and I have done more than 900 talks together," she noted Wednesday night. "Some places we're doing six and seven presentations a day." For her tour, including her stop in Culpeper, Land and Borage will also bring their sled and gear, so visitors can get a better idea of what goes into the race. After three years of competing, Land decided to take a break from the Iditarod.
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