by Terrie Hanke in Unalakleet
The Iditarod world spins 24-hours a day. Mushers come into the checkpoint, mushers leave the checkpoint, vets check dogs, dogs eat, dog feet and muscles are massaged by caring mushers, dogs sleep, mushers sleep and a myriad of other mushing related tasks. But there’s a whole lot more happening in each of the villages than the Iditarod Sled Dog Race that passes through. Take Unalakleet for example.
On the day the youngest musher to ever win Iditarod gold crossed under the burled arch in Nome, plenty of other things were going on in the village of Unalakleet. There was a pie social at the Covenant Church. It was as much fun eating the pie as it was listening to people decide on what kind of pie to make and bring to the social. Across the slough from the checkpoint, Nancy Persons practiced with the Unalakleet skiers. The skiers and Biathlon athletes had just returned from the Arctic Winter Games and a meet in Koyuk. Between the checkpoint and the skiers, three dogs teams, unrelated to Iditarod were lined out for the better part of the day.
Turns out the three dog teams were on the Iditarod trail for a very special reason. David Monson and daughters, Tekla and Chisana, are celebrating the memory of wife and mother, Susan Butcher. Susan is the only woman to win four Iditarod championships and only one of two women to ever win the race. The Monson family is traveling by dog team from Galena to Nome a distance of 470 miles. MOnson says that it’s more than just a run with dogs, the girls are getting to know more about their mother and meet many of the people living along the trail she considered so special. In 2007, a year after Susan’s death, Tekla turned eleven. She and her father traveled from Manley Hot Springs to Nome by dog team. Tekla wore her mother’s red insulated mushing suit. Chisana who has now turned eleven is making the trip to Nome wearing her mother’s red insulated mushing suit. Monson and the girls consider these trips at the age of eleven to be a family right of passage. Read more about the Monson family pilgrimage in Jill Burke’s Alaska Dispatch story.
