Susan Butcher, 1954-2006 (updated)

UPDATE

David Monson, Susan Butcher’s husband has posted the following statement. As you might expect it’s very hard to get into the site to which I’ve linked—Susan’s fans and well-wishers are crowding the Internet to get the news. Here’s his statement in full:

Susan left us at 3:25 pm August 5, 2006. It was peaceful. The rest after her greatest race. We told her we would be OK. That she had made us strong enough to carry on. When she was sure that we were ready she was gone.

Tonight the girls and I took a ferry to Bainbridge Island. It was a peaceful passage from the trumoil of the city to a quiet spot she loved. Tekla wore her mothers necklace and Chisana wore her rings. We sat silently near the shore and looked up. The sky was an explosion of stars. I asked Chisana which one she thought was her mom. She sat on my lap and studied the sky for a long time finally she pointed and said “I think that one. But don’t worry she is not alone.” Neither are we. She will be guiding us from that star.

My original post and several updates follow.

ORIGINAL POST

Susan Butcher, four-time winner of the Iditirarod sleg dog race and at one time the dominant athlete in her sport, has died at 51:

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Four-time Iditarod champion Susan Butcher, who in 1986 became the race’s second female winner and brought increased national attention to its grueling competition, has died. She was 51.

Butcher died Saturday in a Seattle hospital of a reoccurrence of leukemia after a recent stem-cell transplant, her doctor said.

She dominated the 1,100-mile sled dog race from Anchorage to Nome in the late 1980s. Her other victories came in 1987, ’88 and ’90, and she finished in the top four through 1993.

“What she did is brought this race to an audience that had never been aware of it before simply because of her personality,” Iditarod spokesman Chas St. George said.

She is survived by her husband, David Monson, and two young daughters. Our hearts go out to them. As of this point Dave has understandably not posted a statement. When he does, I’ll update.

Her contributions to the sport of dog sled racing and the breeding of champion sled dogs will endure for many years.

There’s a little story that doglovers repeat about the Rainbow Bridge, where every animal you’ve known and loved through the years waits to greet you when you die. Mushers have embroidered on this story a little: when a musher dies he or she is pulled across the Bridge by a team of all of the great sled dogs you’ve had over the years.

What a magnificent team Susan will have!

Godspeed, Susan. May you rest in peace and perpetual light shine upon you.

UPDATE

The Anchorage Daily News has a very nice tribute:

Far from her Alaska home and the dogs she loved so much, four-time Iditarod champion Susan Butcher died Saturday in a Seattle hospital.

She was 51 years old and the mother of two young daughters. She had been waging a battle against leukemia for a year and a half, but sometimes not even the toughest warriors can win.

A child of the American upper middle class, she turned her back on the civilized world of Cambridge, Mass., to carve out a niche for herself and her beloved dogs in a cold, difficult corner of Bush Alaska.

Read the whole thing!

ANOTHER UPDATE

The Seattle Times has posted an obituary for Susan:

Susan Butcher, four-time winner of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, was determined to conquer her leukemia, just as she had triumphed over the grueling 1,100-mile race from Anchorage to Nome.

Despite her fighting spirit, though, she couldn’t overcome the cascade of medical complications that eventually overtook her. Butcher, 51, died Saturday afternoon at the University of Washington Medical Center, where she had undergone a stem-cell transplant about two months ago.

When Butcher first developed leukemia, late last year, she worried about who was going to take care of her beloved dogs in Alaska while she got treatment, said Dr. Jan Abkowitz, head of the division of hematology at the UW and one of a team of doctors who cared for Butcher during her treatment there through the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance.

An “incredible network of spectacular friends” stepped up, said Abkowitz, who wasn’t surprised.

“This was a truly amazing person,” she said. “She was extremely insightful and sensitive and exciting. She just had an amazing way of communicating with people and inspiring them.”

Again, you owe it to yourself to read the whole thing.

Reuters:

Susan Butcher, four-time winner of the grueling Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, died on Saturday of cancer. She was 51.

Butcher was not the first woman to win the Iditarod, but she dominated the 1,150-mile sled dog race from Anchorage to Nome during the 1980s and early 1990s.

She was one of the world’s most celebrated female athletes and inspired a popular slogan: “Alaska – Where Men are Men and Women Win the Iditarod.”

Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, a family friend, announced Butcher’s death. “Susan was a remarkable and courageous woman. Alaska shall not forget her,” Stevens said in a news release.

Butcher had been suffering from leukemia, diagnosed in 2005. She died of complications from a bone marrow transplant while receiving treatment at a Seattle hospital.

“I don’t know that I’ve ever been any more shook up since John F. Kennedy died,” Jeff King, a four-time champion who won the Iditarod this year, told Reuters.

“I don’t think I had any idea how hard this was going to be. Because only now do I realize that she represented even more than a friend, a mentor for the sport.”