Butcher will be on the trail

Late trail-blazing champion honored at pre-race banquet

by Jon Little
3/3/07
cabelasiditarod.com

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Mar. 2, 2007 — It didn't descend into trash talk Thursday night at the Iditarod pre-race banquet, but a couple of past champions couldn't help but make a quip or two.

 

"I've got a quick prediction for you," announced Mitch Seavey, the 2004 champion, to a packed crowd at Anchorage's Sullivan Arena. "No new five-time winners this year."

It was Seavey's way of pointing out that he expects to win his second title, preventing Doug Swingley, Jeff King or Martin Buser from reaching a milestone held only by the man who can still claim to be the winningest Iditarod musher ever: Rick Swenson. Swenson last won in 1991, but he's always in the race. And, at 55, he still is easily capable of pulling off another win. Swenson mentioned grabbing win No. 6 before marching off the podium.

It was another four-time winner who dominated the evening, however. Susan Butcher, who succumbed to leukemia in August, was remembered, and the audience gave a standing ovation as her husband, David Monson, stood to say a few words. He said the couple was touched beyond words by the calls, cards and letters they received while Butcher battled the disease at a Seattle hospital. He said he and Tekla, their 11-year-old daughter, would be traveling the Serum Run trail from Manley to Nome in honor of Butcher in a few days, with one major goal of spending 24 hours at Old Woman cabin, about two-thirds of the way from Kaltag to Unalakleet.

 

The place is significant, Monson pointed out. First of all, his wife loved it. It is a kind of transitional area, where the inland Athabaskan country of the Yukon River gives way to the Inupiat coast. They plan to "leave a little bit of Susan" at Old Woman, a place, which, according to legend, is haunted by an old woman. But far from being a spooky location, the cabin is nestled among some tall trees at the foot of a distinctive peak. It's a vibrant spot. From now on, Monson said, if mushers shiver and feel an odd presence as they go by, "it's Susan, checking out their dog team" and wishing them good luck.

Butcher will have bib No. 1 this year as the Iditarod's honorary first musher to leave the starting line. Racers will start out with bib 2.

 

The pre-race banquet gives race fans in Anchorage another chance to take a look at the odd assortment of 82 people who paid the $1,850 entry fee and spent the past seven months preparing dogs, gear and themselves for a race like no other in the world. It's a chance for the mushers to pick the best possible starting position come Sunday, when the race kicks off for real from Willow. Watching them stand there in the limelight for a few seconds, one by one, I couldn't help but think of temperatures plummeting below minus 30, gusty winds, rocks, bare glare ice, stumps, snags, poorly placed trees and countless other inconveniences that every one of them will have to endure over the next two weeks.

It was hard to ignore winds gusting to 40 mph and temperatures in the single digits outside the arena as the mushers drew their starting positions.

Several mentioned they couldn't wait to get out in it. Though some said the anticipated rough trail wasn't much different from back home. "We train for that," is how Louis Nelson Sr. put it, unflinchingly. Nelson, 64, is a sliver of a man, and one of four teams on the trail from Kotzebue this year. The region is known for producing fine dog teams, and mushers who've learned to be handy with a compass because they're sometimes caught in blinding whiteout conditions and have to find their way back home.

 

In addition to the drawing for starting positions, Cabela's, one of the primary Iditarod sponsors, held a drawing for its Outfitter Awards, which present a rookie and veteran musher each with a check for $1,000 and a Stihl chainsaw. This year's winners were Bryan Mills and rookie Bruce Milne.

As expected, most of the mushers Thursday night gobbled up the earliest possible starting positions. Mushers pick when they leave based on the order they signed up for the Iditarod. Lance Mackey camped out for days last June so he could make the first pick, and he chose bib 13 as promised, hoping the number will be as lucky for him as it was for his brother, Rick, who won in 1982 and his father, Dick, who won by a dog nose in 1978.

Jeff King said he picked the number that most fit how old he feels - 31. That pick matches what he did last year, when he said he liked taking off an hour behind the first teams to go. Teams leave at two-minute intervals, spreading the field out by almost three hours between the first and last to go. They'll make up the difference when they take their mandatory 24-hour layovers later on. Mushers who leave early will take 25- or 26-hour layovers, while the last to leave, bib 83, will take the minimum 24 hours.

Seavey might have been the only one to say it out loud Thursday night, but there's more than just past champions who think they have a team capable of preventing another five-time winner. DeeDee Jonrowe is one of them. "I've got a team that can win," she told me during the banquet. For the last three years, Jonrowe has leased a few dogs to fill in her team, and has plainly had success with it. This year she made a point of mentioning it at the banquet, saying she made the move to counter the strength of Team Norway.

Robert Sørlie, the two-time champion and patriarch of Team Norway, is back this year and has said his team made up of dogs from his kennel and others in Norway is very strong.

Jonrowe, Sørlie and all the others will get a day off from meetings on Friday. Most will spend the day fine-tuning their racing sleds or taking their dogs on short runs around Anchorage's sprint racing trails. The ceremonial start is 10 a.m. Saturday in Anchorage, and the racing begins for real at 2 p.m. Sunday in Willow.