Congratulations go out to SSG Harry Alexie who has qualified to run the 2009 Iditarod. After the successful completion of both the GinGin 200 and the Copper Basin 300 SSG Alexie is now on the way to the 2009 Iditarod.

Throughout the race you can check in here at AKGUARD.com for updates on the status of the Alaska Army National Guard musher SSG Alexie. Check back soon for details and updates!

SSG Alexie finished 5th in the Male Division of the Gin Gin 200 (with temps at -40 and 40 mph winds) and he finished 9th at the Copper Basin 300 and was named the Rookie of the Year for that race.

The Copper Basin 300 is considered to be the toughest mid-distance sled dog race in the world and both he and his dogs finished in excellent shape. Given the experience that he has accumulated and the trainer that is preparing him, SSG Alexie has the ability to finish in the top 20 of the Iditarod. Anything can happen on the trail, but SSG Alexie is determined to show that he has what it takes to compete in the Last Great Race.

WHY DOG MUSHING AND THE NATIONAL GUARD IN ALASKA

We are extremely honored to have SSG Harry Alexie representing the Alaska Army National Guard in the dog mushing community. If you look at the history of the ATG and the AKARNG we would not have world class Soldiers in our ranks that we do if it were not for a guy on the back of a dog sled. When WWII broke out Major Marvin "Muktuk" Marston had submitted a new plan to defend the entire Alaska coast by enlisting the local citizens]. He had conceived this plan while visiting Saint Lawrence Island and contemplating the fate of the locals he'd met]. Marston's proposal finally met with favor when word of it got to Alaska territorial governor Ernest Gruening]. Gruening had sought to organize a new guard for Alaska, including every able man and boy, since he got word that the US Army would reassign the Alaska National Guard.

Motivated by the recent Dutch Harbor attack, the Alaska Command assigned Major Marston and Captain Carl Schreibner within days to serve as military aides to Governor Gruening. Shortly after, Gruening and Marston flew a chartered plane to begin setting up units of the new Alaska Territorial Guard (ATG). This included one of the most strategically important sites in all Alaska, a tiny mining town called Platinum -- the only source of that strategic metal in all the Western Hemisphere.

The enrollment drive continued into early 1943, the organizers traveling in all kinds of weather and by every available mode of transport, including plane, boat, snowmobile, foot, and the most reliable means in the region, dogsled. When a promised plane failed to arrive after a week, Major Marston set out by dogsled on an epic 680-mile (1,090 km) trip around the Seward Peninsula, during the coldest winter in 25 years]. He survived by foregoing standard military survival training in favor of the native methods of his Eskimo guide, Sammy Mogg].

Thanks to Marston and Mogg's heroic effort, the ATG stood as a first line of defense for the terrain around the Lend-Lease route from America to Russia, against attack by Japan and the Axis Powers.

ABOUT THE RACE

The race runs on two yearly alternating routes from Anchorage, in south central Alaska, to Nome on the western Bering Sea coast, each team of 12 to 16 dogs and their musher cover over 1150 miles in 10 to 17 days.