Susan Butcher Interview (page: 2 / 4) Champion Dog-Sled Racer	Print Interview

Tell me what it takes to be ready to start the Iditarod.

For me to be able to win the Iditarod, here in the early nineties, I have to train at least 11 1/2 months a year -- basically seven days a week.

I am training myself through running, cycling, weight lifting program, and then for about nine months of the year -- eight to nine months of the year -- I am on a sled, and I am mushing fifty to seventy miles a day. And that, in addition to caring for the dogs, and hauling the water from the creek we still don't have running water -- and heating with wood and stuff, my lifestyle is keeping me fit.
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As far as the dogs go, from the time the dogs are four months of age, they go in harness, pulling either a sled in the wintertime or a four wheeled cart in the summertime, three to four times a week for the rest of their lives. So each dog in my kennel needs to go three to four times a week. As puppies, say two to ten miles, and as they advance, from ten to ninety miles a day, depending on the length that I am going to be running them. And during this process, I am physically conditioning them. I am mentally training them, and I am educating them. And all are equally important, and all are very exciting because I am at the leading edge of my sport.

Now dog mushing is a very old lifestyle, but dog sled racing is a relatively new sport, really just twenty years old. So advances are being made very rapidly, and there are no books to read; we cannot find out what the next move is, so that is one of the things that keeps it so exciting for me. I am always having to figure out new conditioning methods, new training methods to educate the dogs; and then probably of foremost interest and importance to me would be the mental training -- the trust that I develop with them. The winning spirit that I enhance in them and bring forward. I am really looking for the mental athlete when I pick my pups. I do not always pick the best physical specimen if it doesn't have that extra athletic heart.

Let's go back to those early days, when you first started to compete. What you did have to overcome, not just to win the race, but to win acceptance?

Well, my first year, I came in "in the money". I was the first woman to do so, and so attention, media attention, of course, turned to me quite rapidly. And everybody kind of turned to take note. I didn't do that well, but it was allowable. "Here's a freak, look at her, she did this."

The next year, I advanced rapidly and was in the top ten. And immediately, hackles started coming up in the back of the neck. I started getting a very different reception, but they weren't discounting me yet. That didn't happen until the next year, when I was in the top five. And then, immediately, many of my fellow mushers were saying, "She was lucky. It was an easy year." There was always some sort of excuse for the reason that I was doing well. In addition, I ran into all sorts of really harsh criticism -- verbally, to my face. Sometimes even physical acts that made it twice as difficult for me to continue down the trail.

The next year, when I continued to do as well, and the following years, many of the male mushers formed a group against me, and worked as a group against me, planning their strategies to ruin my strategy for the race. And it was somewhere in there that I saw -- in order for me to win the race, I had to be much better than they were. I didn't have to be just a little bit better than the best male. He could win being just a little bit better. And they just weren't going to let me win, being that much better. So it was then that I said, "Well, then I take that challenge, and I will become that much better, and I can become that much better, and I think I know how." And I started working on it. And it did come true because I had to do that, and I had to work so hard on it. It wasn't something that was going to happen easily.

It wasn't until my eighth race that I won. And yes, perhaps I was starting to have an inkling of self-doubt. But I knew I could win. And I had great faith, or, of course, I never could have finally pulled it all together. But when the papers would say, and my fellow mushers would say, "She will never be able to win because of such and such," you know, this does work on you mentally. You combat it, you say it's not true, but you constantly hear it. It's very difficult. The other thing is, all these men that, jointly, went against me, were individually my good friends. So that was very painful; to have good friends be fine the rest of the year, and treat you as a friend, and yet, when they would get into a racing situation, and get in this buddy system, I was out. I wasn't even welcome to share the campfires with them. So it was tough. There was a real loneliness in it for me.

Can you think back to what you felt like that moment, after the first victory, when you crossed the finish line and you were the winner?

You know, when I first won the race, I think I was almost in shock. I don't think I could enjoy what had happened until almost twenty-four hours later. I had worked so hard for it. And, of course, at this point in the race you are also so exhausted. There was certainly just a glow and a contentment in me.

But to actually finally sit back and say "I am the champion of the Iditarod!" This was something that had just been so high and just close enough to almost touch, but never touch, and all of a sudden I was there. It was amazing to me that I had actually reached a goal.
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And then, I think as anybody who reaches a goal knows, there is a depression that goes with that. I had experienced this with every finish of every Iditarod because that in itself is a goal -- just to be able to finish. So I knew a little bit about it.

I worked quickly to combat it. Probably a week or two after the finish, I just said, "Well, it's time to get ready for next year's race, and I am going to win." I learned that was the way to battle that problem. In fact, the next year, 1987, after winning again, when I was standing at the finish line and the media wanted to interview me, and ask me how it went I said, "I don't want to talk about this year's race. It's over. I've won it. Let's talk about next year's race. I'm coming back to win it again." The instant I was done with that goal, I went on to my next. And I never went through the depression.

Did things change among your fellow competitors?

I think by the time I had won my first race, there was no doubt in anybody's mind of my ability or my dogs' ability. And I think I do have the respect. I really don't blame anyone for the problems. We all have to grow. I had to make the move into becoming a woman very dominant in the sport, and it was a long growing process for me. It was also a growing process that all the men had to go through, too. So I have never found fault with any individual for the problems that they had dealing with me entering the sport.

The respect came, and they really do have great respect for my abilities. The media has made a big thing of it, and that is difficult for them. It's difficult for me. And that is the only ongoing conflict at this point.

What is it like out there on the trail, under those circumstances? Can you try to describe it for us?

Well, for the musher, the most difficult aspect is the lack of sleep. And it is an ongoing and constant thing that you are aware of. We are getting between one and two hours of sleep a day for perhaps an eleven to thirteen, fourteen day race. It turns out a little bit more than that, I think, in a twelve day race. I'll get about twenty hours of sleep. Most people think that fact in itself would make this an extremely grueling, totally uncomfortable race. Then you add to it the cold.

We are often as cold as fifty below. You have the wind storms; you have the snow storms; you also might have forty above zero. You have a lot of elements that are causing what most people view as discomfort. But again, the thing to remember is that we live in that all year round. And, although, yes, I am very, very cold at fifty below, and even as good as I have learned to dress in those temperatures, I am not going to say I am completely comfortable. Yet, I know how to deal with them, and I am not miserable. Although sometimes you are. [laughs] But I am often not miserable.

What is important for me to say is that the country we are going through is so magnificent and beautiful. Even though I've gone through this same country many, many, many times, it is never anything less than spectacular. And it is always changing. Every twenty, thirty, or forty miles, you come into a totally new terrain. Maybe you are in some really tall mountains, the Alaska range, or one of the other ranges we go over. You could be on the Yukon River, which is, at some points, a mile across. Just magnificent. Or the frozen tundra, which is not beautiful in the same sense as the mountains, but awesome in it's expanse. So there is always something beautiful to look at. If it's the night, you may not be able to see anything except for the stars or, more often, the Northern Lights. So we are always out in the spectacular nature and the wilderness, and no matter how tired you are, no matter how cold you are, you are able to appreciate that.

But I think the most important thing is that you are out there with your twelve, sixteen, twenty best friends -- the dogs. I have raised each one of them. I have trained them. I know each little personality. I know what they are thinking as they are going down the trail, each individually. They are all thinking different thoughts. I know how much they're enjoying it. And I can see the work that we have all put together to make this team perform the way it is obviously performing for me -- if I am being able to win -- is so satisfying and fantastic.

To me, today, there is nothing that brings me more joy than to see a sixteen dog team trotting down the trail with just as much power as you could muster. It's just a beautiful scene to me.

But you also must have things to worry about out there.

Many people say, "What do you think about for twelve days?" Well, you are constantly, at every step of the way, worrying about steering the sled, making sure that the dogs are going the direction that you want them to, staying on the trail, so on and so forth. The trails are not huge, beautiful paths. We go over boulders, over fallen trees, over bare ground, twists and turns and down through mountain gorges, and over glare ice, through open water, everything. The actual steering of the sled for the musher is very physically demanding. In addition, you are trying to watch what's going on two or three feet in front of the sled, you're looking at your lead dogs way up there, and at every dog in the team, making sure that they are okay, taking the bends correctly, and that there are no problems. That is really what you are spending your time thinking about when you are mushing down the trail.

You are constantly checking how each individual dog is performing -- is one tiring before the rest of the group? If so, it's time to stop. You always stop for the weakest dog, not the strongest dog. When should I stop next? What should I feed them next? Where, when is the next checkpoint? You're trying to look at the terrain around you, trying to figure out where you are. I have a map, a compass. I'm constantly checking my watch, trying to find out if I am lost or if I am on the right trail. All of these things are of great concern every moment of every day.

In addition, you are in a race. You are not just on a survival trip. So you are worrying about where so and so is. Perhaps you just passed a fellow musher stopped by the trail. Is he going to stop for a half hour, is he going to stop for four hours? What does this mean to my strategy? When did I last see him? Let's see, he left the checkpoint a little bit in front of me. Am I moving faster than him? All these types of things. Or perhaps you literally pass somebody on the go. Well, that's a wonderful feeling, and you say, "A- ha! I'm faster!" [laughs] Or, "At this point in the race I am faster." So it's a great game of strategies. It's a great game of dog care. Do you want to be out in the lead? How much faster are you than another one? When should you take your rest periods, and when should you push? This is great.

Then you have the storms, and you have everything else that comes in to create havoc with what would be a perfect strategy. So it's a balance between a survival act and a typical race. There are so many aspects; I think this is why it has held my interest for so long. There are always new things to get better at. Right now I am spending a lot of my time working on canine nutrition, on canine sports medicine. I am actually getting back into the veterinary field because I love it so much, to find out where I can enhance the team. But again, what I am looking for is not written in any book. I am working with veterinarians on the next step that they don't even know about. And it's really exciting.

It sounds like it could be dangerous out there.

There are a lot of dangers. We have avalanches. We have the dangers of the Arctic blizzards which are, in many ways, the most fearsome. Many people freeze to death every year who travel in those countries. No one has ever frozen to death in the race, but this happens typically with the local people, so we know it's extremely dangerous. The open water is perhaps the thing we fear the most, or the thin ice.

In 1984 I was ten miles away from a checkpoint village, an Eskimo village of Shaktoolik. I was alone at night, traveling on some salt water ice, and I was quite a ways off land. And all of a sudden I realized that the ice was billowing around me.

Just as I realized how dangerous it was, I gave the dogs the command to turn towards land just as my sled broke through. I went under, broke through, and the successive dogs right in front of the sled broke through because of the weight of my sled. But the lead dogs and a couple pairs behind them were able to stay up on the hard ice and slowly but surely pull the rest of us out. It was probably about thirty below, and there is not one blade of grass out there. There is nothing to start a fire with to warm us up or dry us off.
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So I just kept everybody moving. I ran for the next ten miles to keep myself from freezing to get to the next checkpoint. Now, this water that I broke through was deep enough to drown me, but just as often the danger is merely getting wet in temperatures below zero, where there is no shelter from the wind, and there is often nothing to start a fire with. That is a great danger. A less common danger, but nonetheless very serious, is the moose. The wolves are simply curious. They never cause us any problems. The bears, except for the polar bears, are in hibernation, and most of the polar bears are much further north than where we race. So the only danger for us really is the moose and the buffalo. But we only run through one herd of buffalo on the way to Nome.

The moose generally run away from a dog team but occasionally they will somehow feel entrapped, and they feel they have to run towards you, and in essence, through the dog team. That has probably happened to me three or four times. No serious injuries to the dogs, none to me. Only minor injuries.

In 1985, I was traveling alone at night in the lead of the race and ran into an obviously crazed moose. She was starving to death. There was something wrong with her. She was just skin and bones. And rather than run away, she turned to charge the team. I thought she would just run through me. I stopped the team, threw the sled over. She had plenty of room to pass us along the trail. She came into the team and stopped. She just started stomping and kicking the dogs. She charged at me. For twenty minutes, I held her off with my ax and with my parka, waving it in her face.
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