On the day Iditarod crowned its youngest champion ever, plenty of other things were going on three hundred miles away in the community 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 dog teams, unrelated to Iditarod were lined out for the better part of the day.

Turns out the three dog teams were very related to Iditarod and were on the trail for a very special reason. David Monson and daughters, Tekla and Chisana, are celebrating the memory of wife and mother, Susan Butcher. They’re traveling by dog team from Galena to Nome. 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 Susan considered so special living along the trail. 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 running a dog team 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. Butcher is the only to win four Iditarod Championships and one of only two woman champions in the forty year history of the race.  Read more about the Monson family pilgrimage in Jill Burke’s Alaska Dispatch story.