Woman Wins 1,158-Mile Sled Dog Race

NOME, Alaska —  Eventually, it had to be Susan Butcher.

Butcher, a 30-year-old musher from Eureka, Alaska, (pop. 13), had been the first woman to finish in the top 20, the top 10 and the top 5 and had finished second twice in the 1,158-mile Iditarod Anchorage-to-Nome sled dog race. Thursday, she finally won the race.

She not only earned a $50,000 first-place check, but broke the record for the 14-year-old race by more than 17 hours, finishing in 11 days 15 hours 6 minutes. The runner-up was Joe Garnie, from Teller, Alaska, who mushed in 61 minutes later. He had been overtaken by Butcher 42 miles from Nome.

The race finished in darkness Thursday morning, at six minutes after midnight. Many of Nome’s 3,500 citizens had begun lining up along the two blocks of Front Street at 10:30 p.m. Wednesday, in clear, windless but 5-below weather, when word spread that Butcher had rounded Cape Nome, 10 miles away, and was approaching the city.

During the day Wednesday, trucks had brought in dozens of loads of snow to Front Street’s icy but snowless pavement, principally for the benefit of photographers. The finish line is the intersection of Front and Division streets in front of Nome’s City Hall.

The starting point, 1,158 miles to the southeast, was downtown Anchorage, where the race had begun at 9 a.m., March 1.

Nomeites had a local favorite in the race, Garnie. As one put it: “Joe is from Teller, and that’s only 60 miles away. Alaska’s a big state, so to us, Joe’s a local.”

There were groans from most of the spectators at the finish, when the announcer said, at 11:25 p.m. Wednesday: “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a report that Susan Butcher is five miles outside of Nome and there is no report on Joe Garnie.”

Afterward, Butcher said that she was more excited about finally winning the Iditarod than about being the second woman in a row to win an event once considered the last bastion of manhood in macho Alaska.

“I feel like a musher who won a race against some very talented mushers, not like a woman who defeated mushers,” she said.

Last year’s winner, Libby Riddles of Teller, took this year off to help train Garnie, her boyfriend, for the race.

Butcher and her husband, Dave Monson, own more than 100 huskies at their kennels in Eureka. When asked what she’d do with her $50,000 check, she said: “Dog food. It costs us just about $60,000 to maintain our kennel operation.”