End of the Iditarod — a Gold Rush ghost town on the Bering Sea where musk oxen walk the beach
Nome sits on the south coast of the Seward Peninsula in western Alaska, 160km from the Russian coast, with no road connecting it to the outside world. Founded in 1898 after prospectors found gold on its beaches, Nome briefly became Alaska's largest city with 20,000 residents. Today 3,700 people remain, mostly Inupiaq Alaska Natives. Nome is the finish line of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race each March, and in spring it draws extraordinary birders for Asiatic vagrant species blown across the Bering Strait.
The Nome gold rush of 1898–1910 was unique because the gold was in the beach sand itself, accessible to anyone with a gold pan. At its peak in 1900, Nome had 20,000 residents and 30 saloons. Nome's most famous moment came in 1925 when mushers carried diphtheria antitoxin 1,085km by dogsled in 127 hours — the inspiration for the Iditarod race.