Husky News

The start of the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race in Fairbanks on Feb. 9 this year marks the 25th annual running of the race or, to put it more succinctly and in common terms, the 25th anniversary.

The Quest organization itself is not recognizing the anniversary this year and that is a truly unfortunate way to confuse the public and miss out on some great promotional potential.

We are told the Yukon Quest leadership put a great deal of thought and consideration into this decision. According to Quest officials, this year will be celebrated as the “25th running” of the race which, they apparently believe, leaves emphasis on the race as what is most important. The Yukon Quest organization will mark its 25th “anniversary” in 2009 — to include the 26th running of the race.

It’s one of those situations where people will kind of see the logic used to reach a decision but still know that it doesn’t make sense. That’s because no one really cares how long Yukon Quest International Ltd. has been around. We would go so far as to say that, in the general public’s mind, the organization is all but invisible.

All eyes are where they should be; on the dogs, the mushers, the race and its 25th anniversary, which happens next month.

We would hazard a guess that a musher like Sonny Lindner, who won the first Quest in 1984 and hasn’t run the race since, is running again this year because this is the 25th anniversary, not because it’s the 25th “running.”

Perhaps we’re just “word people” and this really won’t make that much difference to the public at large. But we believe people could be supremely excited about a 25th anniversary. A 25th running is much less interesting.

An anniversary is a celebration or annual honoring of an event or accomplishment. A “running” is just another in a string of events that may or may not have been consecutive. The Quest hasn’t just happened 25 times, it’s an annual event, the first of which was in 1984.

If you look for a 100th Anniversary Kentucky Derby item, you’ll find it was made in 1974, for the 100th annual running of the race — which started in 1875. The 25th anniversary of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race was held in 1997. The first race was held in 1973.

This is not like a wedding anniversary, when the wedding date is the zero point (no negative pun intended). The 1984 Quest counts as the first. The second, in 1985, was the second annual and so on.

Source: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner