Editor's note: A version of the following commentary was first published on Feb. 25, 2011, prior to that year's Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. It has been updated to reflect activists' current campaign against the 2012 Iditarod.
Dear PETA,
Well, the Iditarod is gearing up for its 2012 start, and we The Concerned are sorry to hear you didn't take our advice to heart last year. Your ongoing campaign against the Iditarod is still just creating circumstances that make your stated goal -- to end mushing once and for all -- impossible to achieve.
You've begun in earnest the annual campaign to cram Iditarod sponsors with fear-induced form letters and spread misinformation about dog mushing in general, and the Iditarod in particular. Pretty much every year, it's safe to assume, some unknowing Lower 48 reporter, columnist or editor will read one of your canted press releases and repeat what you want everyone to believe about mushing. In 2011, your propaganda found a way to exert pressure on unsuspecting federal bureaucrats to yank a sponsorship. Nothing of that sort has happened in 2012.
We know your overall strategy is to do and say extreme things in order to change public perception of behavior you disagree with, but every year, you spread outdated falsehoods about how poorly Iditarod dogs are treated and how cruel mushers are in order to fool media members who have no real idea about Alaska or mushing. Even though we expect it every year, and we have learned to tune you out, many of us are sick of it.
But more than we're sick of your efforts to slant, we The Concerned are tired of watching you fail so badly over and over again. Every time you lodge a protest, mushing figures out a way to remove the causes of your concerns, and compared to long ago, mushing is much less cruel today. Many fewer dogs die or are injured in today's Iditarod, veterinarians outnumber mushers along the trail, dog booties are everywhere now, and even the oldest among us can't recall the last time they saw a musher carry a bullwhip or axe handle because everyone's found a way to discipline teams without looking mean.
And as much as you might hate to hear it, keeping discipline is extremely important to a dog team or a kennel. No matter how awesome you may think it would be if all the dogs in the world just ran around free; it would be terrible, deadly even. Even northern children who have experience around large groups of leaderless dogs -- which is most of them -- know better than that. We've thought for a long time the conflict between you and mushing was cultural; after all, how many village dogs or sled teams are there in, say, San Dimas? But the fact remains that abused, neglected or mistreated dogs are dangerous to the people who keep them and to everyone else in a community.
In fact, for a long time, your persistent half-true allegations have made us think you got your idea of mushing from Jack London's fanciful tale, Call of the Wild, which depicts numerous instances of cruelty. That reliance on fiction may also explain why you think the Iditarod still commemorates the famous 1925 serum run to Nome. It may have started that way, and the first organized Iditarod certainly gave props to its long-ago predecessor. But the originators also primarily started the race that became today's Iditarod to slow mushing's disappearance under the tracks of snowmachines.
The Iditarod does not commemorate some dead part of history; it is a living part of Alaska. It commemorates Alaska's continued love of mushing and the staggering feats of cross-species teamwork and symbiosis that it showcases.
But if your goal is truly, as you've stated, to bring an end to long-distance mushing once and for all, we're concerned you have no idea that your tactics have only made northerners more stubbornly committed to the culture of mushing and more disdainful of your organization in general.
What Alaskan can forget the time you sent some poor guy to stand in downtown Anchorage in a full-body fish costume as part of a campaign about the "cruelty" of fishing. We heard rumors that passersby tried to dump full sodas on the guy, which is pretty cruel, but not as cruel as sending him there in the first place. He's probably lucky you weren't cruel enough to send him to Dillingham, Dutch Harbor or Kodiak.
In fact, come to think of it, maybe we're more heartless ourselves than we've considered. Several hundred times among us we've thrown a tennis ball for fetch-crazy dogs one too many times. We didn't even feel any remorse those times a particularly ancient dog we once knew (rest well, Boozer) laid down in a panting heap on sharp, parking lot gravel and gave his favorite Frisbee a few, mournful, desultory mouthings before returning to us. Despite his exhausted gait, his tongue bulging out the side of its elderly mouth, he practically dared us to throw it one last time. So we did.
But maybe we were wrong; we The Concerned have been known to be wrong, after all. We should've taken a minute to think, and maybe you should too. Dog mushing in most of Alaska is essentially a thing of the past now because of alternative transportation, and every year the Iditarod seems to lose a bit more ground to the Iron Dog snowmachine race. The full-frontal assault you've been conducting for the last couple decades is actually helping keep support for the Iditarod strong in Alaska -- and for that matter helping its organizers learn to control the race's public image for people who have no idea what living in the North or keeping a dog team is like.
If you really want to end the Iditarod instead of further entrenching it in the culture of Alaska, you should go positive and throw your weight behind its far weaker competitors. We won't bother suggesting you sponsor the Iron Dog until it lengthens its trail to 10,000 miles and offers a $10 million purse. But since you and activists allied with you have long said no humans would willingly do what mushing huskies are asked to do, why not give financial support to one of Alaska's many ultra-long, humans-only races?
There are many to choose from, among them the Iditarod Trail Invitational, the Susitna 100, the Resurrection Pass Trail run, and the Mount Marathon run. In fact, we understand most of the competitors at Mount Marathon are vegans, so that would probably be the best fit for your organization. We The Concerned aren't sure if your no-cruelty policy extends to the apparent cruelty some humans exhibit toward themselves by running those races, but it's worth considering.
Whatever you decide, just know that every time you lie about the Iditarod to outsiders who don't know better, a stronger mushing fan is born in Alaska.