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Karen Land has raced in the Iditarod three times.
Land said her budget for the race is $25,000.
Musher Karen Land, shown with Borage, has spoken to 900 groups.
Karen Land highlights her presentations with points about leadership and teams. |
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.
"It's so expensive to race," she noted. "For me--and I've got a pretty small kennel--my budget is about $25,000. That's very low. You usually figure about $1,000 per dog in your kennel. Some kennels have 200-300 dogs. So I took a few years off."
In addition to the talks, she also is working on books. Based in Montana, she's an author and also pens a column used by a few newspapers.
Land noted that typically she'll finish a draft of a project, then get pulled away to do something else.
"When I get done with this tour, I will have been on the road for three months," she said. "When I get home, I'm set up so I can work all summer. What's what I need."
Land is looking forward to the Culpeper presentation.
"One of the reasons I love public library talks is that it brings such a diverse age group, usually from the little kids up to the retired adults," she said. "It's neat to have a room full of a crowd that diverse."
When she gives her presentation, she can only touch the surface about the Iditarod. That's understandable. There's a lot to talk about in a race across Alaska that's roughly the same distance as traveling from Land's native Indianapolis to Miami.
"It's a long way," she said. "When I was running it, I tried not to think about it [the distance] at all. I just thought about getting to the next checkpoint."
In a typical school presentation, she's able to keep students focused for an hour to 90 minutes. "Kids, especially second- through sixth-graders, go crazy. They view the dog as a rock star."
A library talk often lasts longer because people will stay afterward to talk and ask questions. And people want to spend time with Borage and get a closer look at the sled and equipment.
"Anything where you combine humans and animals are always fascinating," she noted. "Many people have dogs in their homes, so they know about relating with their own animals. They can imagine what it's like to have 16 and be doing something like traveling across Alaska."
Tickets for Land's presentation may be purchased at the door. The cost is $3 for individuals, or $5 for families.
mymusher.comBill Tolbert: 540/374-5408
Email: btolbert@freelancestar.com
