Current Biography Excerpts: Sled Dog Racing

BUTCHER, SUSAN
Dec. 26, 1954- Sled-dog racer.

Susan Butcher, who is one of only two people to win the world-famous Iditarod sled-dog race at least four times, also holds the record for the fastest completion of that grueling competition. Covering 1,157 miles from Anchorage, Alaska to Nome, the Iditarod forces racers, or mushers, and their dogs to brave two mountain ranges, ice-covered rivers, the frozen Bering Sea, a burned-out forest covered with stumps, violent snowstorms, temperature fluctuations from fifty degrees below zero to forty degrees above, winds of up to 140 miles per hour, and marauding wild animals. Butcher, who has competed in the Iditarod every year since 1978, finished first in 1986, 1987, 1988, and 1990, came in second three times, and finished in the top five a total of nine times. Although Butcher believes that women have greater potential for endurance than men and a stronger tolerance for pain and discomfort--both major ingredients for success in sled-dog racing--she has otherwise never ascribed any importance to her gender as a factor in that male-dominated sport. "My goal was never to be the first woman or the best woman," she told Kathleen McCoy, who interviewed her for Women's Sports & Fitness (February 1987). "It was to be the best sled-dog racer."

Copyright © 1996 by The H. W. Wilson Co.

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1991 Current Biography Yearbook.

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