Yeah, old Joe was one hell of a dog man, but he was so much more.

Redington was an old-school adventurer who started selling the new-school idea of "adventure sport" before anyone put a label on it.

Decades before there was a "Big Wild Life" slogan, Redington was living the big, wild life.

He was a transitional figure between the old days of Alaska, when adventure was mainly about saving yourself from nature, and the new world of Alaska, where it's mainly about finding yourself in nature.

It has, in fact, become so much about finding yourself that when a poor, deranged young man from the Lower 48 wanders a few miles off the road to die, Hollywood devotes hours to a movie about him finding himself (or not, I guess).

People by the millions flock to see the film, and some deranged critics rave about it.

The world is a strange place, indeed.

Alexander Supertramp didn't live long and didn't do anything of note other than starve to death in a bus. For this, his death has been glorified.

Joe lived big, did a lot, enjoyed the kind of life all those people who went to see the movie "Into the Wild" only dream about, and died old. For this, he is recognized simply as "The Father of the Iditarod."

Don't get me wrong. I'm not understating that accomplishment.

Along with being one of the world's great sporting events, the Iditarod is an even greater sporting challenge. It looks easy enough. You stand on those runners, yell "hike," and some dogs tow you to Nome.

How hard can it be?

Well, consider this:

More people have made it to the top of Mount Everest, the world's tallest and deadliest mountain, than have made it to Nome in the Iditarod.

The number of men who have played in the Super Bowl outnumbers the approximately 600 men and women who can say they have made it to Nome in the Iditarod. The number of cyclists who have ridden the Tour de France vastly outnumbers the people who have ridden a dog sled to Nome.

So it is no small thing to be honored for starting this race.

But here's the thing:

Joe didn't just start the dog race. He really started a whole family of races that spun off the Iditarod Trail.

You could argue he changed the whole face of winter recreation in Alaska.

As the dogs prepare to head up the trail from Willow to Nome today, there are already dozens of people out there trudging toward McGrath on foot or pedaling fat-tired mountain bikes or skiing in the Iditarod Invitational.

The invitational, a human-powered race, is heir to the ill-fated Iditasport, which was founded by and floundered under Dan Bull, a one-time disciple of Old Joe.

Old Joe was a big fan of the Iditasport and before it the Idit-a-shoe (as in snowshoe) and Idit-a-bike, and any other Idit-a-anything to get people out into the real Alaska. About the only Iditarod Trail adventure he wasn't behind was the Iron Dog snowmobile race and only because in the beginning he feared that given America's love with motor sports, the Iron Dog might eclipse the fledgling Iditarod dog race.

Were Joe still around today (he died in 1999, though it doesn't seem nearly that long ago), I have no doubt he'd now be a supporter of that Iron Dog too. Those snowmobile racers and race organizers share his sense of adventure, while the dog race has become such a big deal that the threats it faces now are not so much competitive as financial.

The Iditarod was built on a foundation of volunteers, and volunteers remain vital to the event's success. The problem is that when events become successful, some of the volunteers start thinking they should get paid. That can present big problems.

Nobody, least of all Joe, could have imagined that when the Iditarod began from nothing in 1973.

When Joe Redington decided to encourage mushers to go to Nome by dog team that first time, there was no Iditarod National Historic Trail (truth be told, there still isn't much of one). There was no trail at all.

For Joe, that sort of just added to the adventure.

Just as taking sled dogs to the summit of Mount McKinley did. Never mind that Joe Redington was no mountaineer.

He knew as much about climbing as I do: You start at the bottom, put one foot in front of the other and keep going until you get to the top. The limited knowledge didn't stop him. Knowing Joe, it might even have encouraged him.

He tapped the experience of climbing guides Brian Okonek and the late Ray Genet, drafted the woman who was then his dog handler, recruited former Daily News photographer Rob Stapleton and went to the mountain top. It was a grand adventure.

The dog handler's name, incidentally, was Susan Butcher. She would go on to have an Iditarod career even more illustrious than that of Redington before dying tragically of leukemia in 2006. She was a woman who shared Joe's sense of adventure and love of wild places.

She was into adventure sport before anyone knew what to call it.

Joe, well, Joe was just Joe, living the adventure he'd always lived, but putting a new spin on it here and there to keep up with the times.

An exhibit on his life opened at the Anchorage Museum on Friday. You should go see it.

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Outdoors editor Craig Medred is an opinion columnist. Find him online at adn.com/contact/cmedred or call 257-4588.