Seward is Mile Zero of the Iditarod, but the race does not start here
On Seward's waterfront there is a wooden plaque that reads "Mile 0" of the historic Iditarod Trail. It is accurate, and it is also misleading: the famous dog sled race has not started from here for over a century. It starts in Anchorage, 190 kilometres away, for reasons that have nothing to do with prestige and everything to do with what happened to the original trail.
LMLucía MontesWorth Knowing editor — Meaning & Cultural Context
7 August 2026· 6 min
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The carved wooden plaque marking Mile 0 of the historic Iditarod Trail, in Seward: "938 miles to Nome".Desconocido·CC BY-SA 2.5
Field notesThe essentials, before you go
The plaque
Mile 0, on the waterfront It marks the start of the historic trail, not of the modern race.
The trail
Laid out between 1908 and 1910 As a mail and supply route into the interior, before Anchorage existed.
The race today
Starts in Anchorage, not Seward Ceremonial start in Anchorage and restart in Willow, every first Saturday of March.
Why it changed
The original stretch disappeared Rail lines and roads were built over the trail on the Kenai Peninsula.
01 A plaque that tells the truth and misleads at once
The trail was laid out between 1908 and 1910, not as a sporting route but as an exploration and mail route to Alaska's interior goldfields. For years it was the communication and supply infrastructure of a region with no roads, until air delivery made it obsolete in 1963. Its most celebrated moment came earlier: in 1925, sled teams used it in relay to carry diphtheria serum to Nome during an epidemic, the feat that later inspired the commemorative race.
It is worth knowing because it changes what the plaque means. It is not a mistake by the town, nor a tourist prop: it is an honest trace of infrastructure more than a century old, which simply no longer lines up with the sporting event that made its name famous.
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