The Finish Line

Note the widow’s lamp that hangs from the burled arch off to the right.  In the days when sled dogs were used for hauling supplies and mail from village to village, a kerosene lamp was lit and hung outside of each roadhouse.  Roadhouses were about a day’s travel apart.  It helped the dog driver find his destination at night and it signified that someone was on the trail.  The lamp was extinguished when the musher made his destination.  That tradition continues with the Iditarod today.  The widow’s lamp is extinguished by the final musher to make Nome, the recipient of the Wells Fargo Red Lantern for Perseverance.