"Her dogs and sled were still outside, not yet brought to her host family's yard. I stood in front of my dad with my chin down to my chest, a foot shorter than the adults in the room. Breathing shallow. Now and then I'd cast glances at her. She was talking. Answering questions. Laughing. I was nervous and couldn't comprehend what she was saying."
"I wanted to say yes, but I was too wonderfully afraid. I had not yet learned that most everything cool in life comes on the other side of fear."
"The woman commanding attention at the checkpoint was musher Susan Butcher, an Iditarod hero. After her stop in Unalakleet that day, she continued on to the end of the race in Nome, where she won her third consecutive Iditarod, the first musher to accomplish the feat."
In the late 1980s, a ten-year-old child travels by snowmachine with their father to Brown's Lodge in Unalakleet, Alaska, a checkpoint for the Iditarod sled dog race. The lodge is crowded with people seeking attention from Susan Butcher, a renowned musher who has become a national figure. Despite wanting desperately to meet her and get her autograph, the child is overwhelmed by shyness and fear, unable to overcome their nervousness despite their father's encouragement. Butcher continues her race to Nome, where she wins her third consecutive Iditarod championship, cementing her status as a pioneering figure in the sport.
Read at High Country News
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