Way to Go

When Susan Butcher, 33, mushed her dog team over the finish line in Nome after 11 days, 11 hours and 41 minutes on the trail across Alaska, the huskies looked as if they had just been out for a fun-filled lope around the block. For them, winning a third consecutive 1,158-mile Iditarod Trail dog-sled race from Anchorage seemed like the natural thing to do, although they did appear perplexed by television lights amid the dark of the Nome midnight.

For Butcher it was another sweet victory in a string that has produced the T-shirt legend: “Alaska--Where men are men and women win the Iditarod.” Butcher not only is the first woman to win the race three times, but the first person to do so. What’s next? A fourth consecutive Iditarod race, in a record time of 10 days, she said, and then a fifth.

Butcher trailed for most of the race this year. But she came from behind to win easily after a severe storm and cold weather hit. She has trained her team to run best in such weather, which is something that usually can be counted on at some point during the annual event. Her final elapsed time broke the existing record, which she set in 1986. The frontier still is the place where people never shy from doing things just because they’ve never been done before.