Starting out with only two dogs, doing odd jobs during the summer months in order to live through the long winters, she eventually rose to become the most famous dog musher in the world.

A disciplined and fearless adventurer, she was the first person to win three consecutive Iditarod championships, from 1986 to 1988. The Iditarod is a 1,152- mile race across the spectacular but brutal Alaskan wilderness. Competitors endure 100 m.p.h. skin-ripping winds, blinding snow, and temperatures reaching 70 degrees below zero. Butcher, who raced in her first Iditarod in 1978, finished in the top five every year since 1980, except in 1985. She was leading in the early stages of the race when a sick and dying moose blundered into her path on the trail. A few frantic minutes later, two of Butcher's dogs were dead, others were injured and she was out of the race.

"You have to be very selfless in your dedication to your dogs. When you come into a checkpoint, although there may be a wood stove to warm your feet by, you stay outside; you take care of your dogs, get them bedded down and fed. It may take three hours. Then you can go and have your 15 minutes inside, and then it's time to go and check your dogs, massage them down and get ready to go again. I might get a catnap," Butcher told The Los Angeles Times.

Susan Butcher is an athletic 5 feet 6 inches and 135 pounds. Obviously she puts in a lot of training hours. At a pace of 8 or 9 m.p.h, "You do some riding that can be fairly relaxing but the majority of it you're either pumping with one leg or running. The most strenuous is going over the rough terrain and having to steer the sled, which weighs 150 to 200 pounds with all the gear in it. Throwing the sled around is as exhausting as pumping or running."

Two of her best lead dogs are Granite and Tolstoy, each of whom has led her to victory.

Like all Alaskan Huskies, Butcher said, "They live to race. They like the competition. They understand the competition. They want to pass the teams ahead of them. You need only one to three dogs to pull you and the sled and the gear, so it's way overkill, and you have this immense amount of power. You've got nothing but a voice command. There are no reins or anything. It's all "gee" for right, "haw" for left, "whoa" for stop.

Owner of Trailbreaker Kennels, Butcher lives in the remote area of Eureka with her husband David Monson, their daughter, and a pack of wonderful sled dogs.