The Red Lantern is a symbol of perseverance and determination.
Explanation:
The Red Lantern is given to the last musher who crosses the finish line and completes the Iditarod. The Iditarod Trail Committee lights a widows lamp in Nome on the first Sunday of March, the day of the restart. They hang it on the Burled Arch and it stays lit until the final musher crosses the finish line. It is then extinguished. This practice came from the days of the Gold Rush when dog sled teams were used to move freight and mail. Each roadhouse along the trail would light a kerosene lamp and hang it outside the roadhouse to help the mushers find their way in the snow and darkness. It was also a signal that there was a dog team out on the trail. The lamp was extinguished when the dog team safely reached its destination.
The red lantern award is for the last place musher in the dog race (Iditarod) in Alaska. The race is about a thousand miles from Anchorage to Nome and is given for the perseverance and determination of the last candidate to finish the race and for not giving up. The idea of the red lantern is from the previous years where a red lantern was placed on the last car of the train to warn other's from bumping into the train.
The Continental Army defeated the British to end the war in the South by tiring them out which forced them to retreat in Yorktown, where they were defeated.
