One of the most difficult races ever devised by the mind of man, the Iditarod is a brutal long-distance winter race that takes place in Alaska between Anchorage and Nome. The annual long-distance sled dog race runs in early March. Mushers and a team of 16 dogs, of which at least 6 must be on the towline at the finish line, cover the distance in 9–15 days or more. The Iditarod began in 1973 as an event to test the best sled dog mushers and teams but evolved into today’s highly competitive race. The current fastest winning time record was set in 2011 by John Baker with a time of 8 days, 19 hours, 46 minutes, and 39 seconds.

This film covers the 1979 race, it’s a phenomenal look into the early days of the Iditarod and it’s enough to make you question the sanity of any man or woman who’d volunteer for something so blisteringly difficult.

If you’ve got 55 minutes to spare, grab yourself a coffee and hit play, it’s a hell of an adventure.

via Silodrome and Iditarod