There aren’t many things worse than unintentionally sliding on the ice.

You know it’s going to happen before it does, and that makes it worse. You slip, recombobulate, whirl your arms and adjust, then boom, down you go anyhow. Slipping on ice is not fun, never mind driving on it—unless, of course your ride doesn’t glide on gasoline. Unless, as in the new book “Four Thousand Paws” by Lee Morgan, it runs on salmon and dog chow.

We take travel for granted. It’s easy to jump in a car and go, forgetting that for centuries, Alaska’s Indigenous people used sleds to travel across what would become our 49th state’s terrain. We rarely consider that until 1973, their trail was just a trail.

That was when the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race officially began.

Basically following ancient trade routes, and said to be longer than a thousand miles (but actually shorter), the first Iditarod race itself was rough, making explorers out of the inaugural thirty-four teams. The man who won the firs...