Iditarod Legend Susan Butcher Dies

I was stunned to hear the news today that Susan Butcher lost her battle against leukemia. My heart breaks for her family. This is a sad loss for them, their friends, and Alaska fans of the Iditarod. My first memories of the Iditarod were in 1986 when Susan won for the first time. She wasn't the first lady to win (Libby Riddle won in 1985), but she went on to win FOUR times in a row and dominated a sport that women were only a precious few. A joke in Alaska is that it's a place where "men are men and women win the Iditarod!". Susan is one of the reasons we say that. Since then, I have sparodically followed the Iditarod and have in the past eight years become a die hard fan. Since Susan left in the mid-90's, I cheer for Dee Dee Jonrowe, who is a cancer survivor. My God bless Susan's family and bring the peace and comfort during their time of loss. Iditarod Legend Susan Butcher Dies of Leukemia By CRAIG MEDRED Anchorage Daily News Published: August 5, 2006 Last Modified: August 5, 2006 at 09:21 PM Far from her Alaska home and the dogs she loved so much, four-time Iditarod champion Susan Butcher died Saturday in a Seattle hospital. She was 51 years old and the mother of two young daughters. She had been waging a battle against leukemia for a year and a half, but sometimes not even the toughest warriors can win. Butcher was one of those warriors. A child of the American upper middle class, she turned her back on the civilized world of Cambridge, Mass., to carve out a niche for herself and her beloved dogs in a cold, difficult corner of Bush Alaska. Through her 20s and into her 30s, she lived an almost cloistered existence in the Interior with her life dedicated to one seemingly impossible goal, winning the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. She spent days on end on the runners of a dogsled following huskies through the frozen taiga and barren wilderness north of Fairbanks. “I like spending a lot of time alone,’’ she told a writer for the Daily News’ old Sunday magazine “We Alaskans’’ back in 1981. She was then 27 years old and already an Iditarod contender, though it would still be five long and difficult years before the breakthrough Iditarod victory of 1986. By then, she had joined forces with Dave Monson, a one-time lawyer, a fellow dog musher, and a soul mate Together, the duo would team to dominate the Iditarod. Butcher was the driving force behind their Trailbreaker Kennels, and the face of the business. Monson was the organizer and administrator, the behind-the-scenes player who held everything together. They were married in 1985. Butcher won the first of her four Iditarods the next year. She would go on to win four more in the next five years -- the most impressive string of victories in Iditarod — history — before making the decision to retire and start a family. At the height of her success, she was so well known she almost became synonymous with the 49th state. Alaskans talking to strangers while traveling Outside would often be met with the refrain, “Oh Alaska, isn’t that where that woman always wins the dogsled race?’’ “That woman” was Butcher, and though she eventually retired from the sport, she was never far away. She bred, raised and trained sled dogs, and she several times assisted various news organizations as a color-commentator covering the race. Mainly, though, she focused the latter part of her life on being a mother. She and Monson had two daughters. They named them both for places in Alaska. Tekla is now 10; Chisana is 5. They moved to Seattle with their parents when Butcher’s leukemia forced her back into the hospital in late June. Only a month earlier, after a bone marrow transplant, she had looked to be on her way to beating the disease first diagnosed in December 2005. But her condition took a turn for the worse when she suffered graft versus host disease, a complication of the bone-marrow transplant in which the immune system from the donor starts attacking the organs of the host. Dr. Jan Abkowitz said Saturday that after a stem-cell transplant May 16, Butcher’s graft-versus-host-disease attacked her digestive system. “Then to our dismay and surprise, about a week ago, when we did a routine bone marrow test, we found that her leukemia had come back,” Abkowitz said. Butcher received chemotherapy for the leukemia and was moved to intensive care Friday at the University of Washington Medical Center. “At the time she had the transplant, her leukemia was in remission. She was feeling absolutely fine,” Abkowitz said. She had hoped to undergo another bone-marrow transplant and try again. Monson was at her side, as he has always been for the past 21 years, when she died Saturday. News of her death hit hard in Alaska. Throughout her illness, Monson has maintained a moving and forthright on-line blog to keep every one up-to-date on her condition. It was often movingingly and painfully honest about her condition as the cancer ravaged the body Butcher once fought so hard to toughen. In her competitive days, she trained herself as hard or harder than her dogs. There was probably never a musher more deserving of the honor of being considered “the toughest dog in the team.’’ Everyone in and around the sport of long-distance mushing knew that of Butcher. “Today is a very sad day for the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, for all Alaskans, and for every person who has been touched by Susan Butcher,’’ the Iditarod said in a message posted on the race website. “She will be greatly missed.” Race marshal Mark Nordman, a personal friend, found it difficult to believe she had died. “I think everyone felt like Susan was such a fighter in the Iditarod that, well, of course Susan Butcher is going to beat this,’’ he said when reached on his cell phone. “That’s how everyone felt, but the Lord didn’t let it happen that way.’’ Nordman was at Iditarod headquaters in Wasilla Saturday making calls around the world to notify mushers of what had happened. It was not an easy thing to do, nor headquarters an easy place to be. “Of course, the first thing you see is Susan and Joe (Redington Sr.) climbing Denali and the champion pictures and everything. It’s just sad. It’s a part of history that has left us. “It will take a little while for it all to soak in.” The late Joe Redington, the father of the Iditarod, climbed Mount McKinley with legendary guide Ray Genet and photographer Rob Stapleton in 1979. Genet later froze to death near the summit of Mount Everest. Cancer got Redington in 1997, and now Butcher. Nordman described her as one of the greatest ambassadors of sled dog sports. She’s the one people always ask about, he said. “She’s left a mark on the sport for sure,’’ he said. “On dog care, there was no one finer. “We knew she was on the biggest battle imaginable, but I think it came as a surprise to everyone that it came especially when it did.” The race’s spokesperson Chas St. George, said in a phone interview that the race and mushing community would be honoring Susan in some way. “First and foremost, we will follow David’s lead. This is an absolutely phenomenal family. We really do need to respect the path they will choose in how to deal with this.” “She was a very close friend to a lot of folks, to a lot of mushers.” Daily News Outdoor editor Craig Medred can be reached at cmedred@adn.com. Daily News reporter Megan Holland and The Associated Press contributed to this story.