Thursday, August 2, 2012


Another one of my heroes is Susan Butcher.  Now some of what I write (here and in general) may not necessarily be true . . . I'm just saying that I don't verify all of my sources, or double check things that I recollect.  If I remember something, I just state it as fact.  If you find something to be suspect or non-factual, feel free to call me out on it.

Susan Butcher raced sled dogs.  She grew up in Boston, Massachusetts and hated city life.   After high school she moved to Colorado to pursue becoming a veterinary technician.  Somewhere in her life, she gained an interest in dog sledding.  So at age 20 she moved to Alaska to live on her own in the wilderness and raise sled dogs.  She first raced the Iditarod in in 1978.  For those of you unfamiliar with it, the Iditarod is one of the most grueling races on earth.  It is an over 1,000 mile sled dog race through rural Alaska.  Temperatures can reach -70 degrees Fahrenheit, the wind can blow 100 miles per hour . . . it's tough.  The dogs are specially bred to be mutts - part malamute, part husky, part other things.  They are loosely referred to as Alaskan Huskies.  They are tough.  The racers are required to make several stops along the way for the health of themselves and their dogs.  These breaks don't amount to more than a couple hours a day.  The racers are tough.

Susan's big chance to win the race came in 1985.  She was well out ahead in the race when a starving female moose came across her dog team.  I've been to Alaska once and was told this about dealing with wildlife.  If you are attacked by anything smaller than a bear, fight back.  This means wolves,  mountain lions, wolverines, etc.  They are probably intending to inflict some serious damage on you, and possibly eat you.  When you get to bear size and larger, fighting will only make it angry, and I don't think even if you are Kimbo Slice you stand much of a chance.  Play dead with a bear.  Now if a bear charges at you in full view stand your ground.  The charge is most likely a bluff to intimidate you.  If you stand big and tall and wave your arms and scream it will leave you alone.  Aside - I wonder how many people have actually done this and we just find their lifeless bodies and assume that they ran in terror?  Anyway, a brown bear can run close to thirty miles an hour.  This is ridiculously fast.  They can also climb trees.  So you better just give the screaming and waving gig a shot.

Now if a moose charges you (particularly a female separated from her young), that animal is not bluffing; so run.  Moose are dangerous, and I imagine that Susan knew this full well.  The animal immediately gored two of her dogs.  Susan pulled out a hatchet and fended for her remaining dog team for about two hours, in the dark, in freezing cold Alaska, until the next sledder came along and shot the already starving moose.

She went on to win the next three years in a row and is the only racer to have a three-peat in the Iditarod.  She won another race for a total of four wins.  A musher, who happens to be a one of my friend's father's boyhood friends named Dave Monson married her.  They had two daughters.  Susan died of leukemia.

For training Susan lifted weights, ran, cycled, and spent a lot of time behind the sled.  She was known for training very aggressively and being loyal to her dogs.  On several occasions she had been stuck in snowstorms  during long training rides.  Instead of packing it in or radioing for an evac, she would put on snowshoes, get in front of her team and proceed to lead them back home for as long as it took.  She was known to do this sort of thing for upwards of 30 miles.  She chose to massage her dogs muscles during their required stops instead of resting herself.

So what is the take away here?  You let me know.  I just like the story.

Auf Wiedersehen,

-C