Unalakleet is a village on the west coast of Alaska with a population of about 747 people. It is located at the Norton Sound end of the Unalakleet-Kaltag Portage, an important winter travel route between the Norton Sound and the Yukon River. Unalakleet has long been a major trade center between the Athabascans who lived in the interior of Alaska and the Inupiats who lived on the coast; the Russian-American Company built a trading post here in the 1830s. Reindeer herders from Lapland were brought to Unalakleet to teach sound herding practices in 1898. In 1901, the United States Army Signal Corps built a telegraph line from St. Michael to Unalakleet. Unalakleet is the first checkpoint on the Norton Sound for the famous Iditarod Dog Sled Race, 851 miles from the start in Anchorage. The first musher to reach this checkpoint each year receives the Gold Coast Award, which includes $2,500.00 in gold nuggets.