HUMAN

Name: Sue Greenly

Age: I’m old

Residence: Nome, Alaska

Occupation: Right now, I’m working for the State of Alaska at the court system.

Years involved with the Iditarod: Been involved with Iditarod, our family, probably for 35, 40 plus years.

Iditarod Role: We basically are housing mushers, and we’ve done that many years. We wanted to figure out what aspect we can help with Iditarod. And that seemed to be the most needy, just because we have all these broke mushers coming into town.

Current Location: Nome, Alaska

Date of Photo: March 15, 2022

Temperature: 7F Outdoors & 68F Indoors at Iditarod Headquarters

What, who or how and when did you first get involved with the Iditarod?

So I first got involved with Iditarod when our house was built, and it’s right across from the Mini Convention Center. So we thought, well, we need to get involved with it somehow. So we, again, decided to do a musher the first year. So we did that. And, of course, the house, it’s out of pocket house, so everything was not necessarily completed. So we had people there. And then, the next year… Oh, and during that time, we saw Kathy Chapotone, and she was coming back and forth between the east end of town and the Mini Convention Center dragging these two kids. And I was like, oh my gosh. And I was down here working with Alaska Airlines, and I just said casually, I said, “Why don’t you take the kids across the street, and they can go play or take a nap or do whatever you want to do.” So I don’t think she came that year, but in February of ’92, she called up and said, “Hey, Martin and handler McGill are doing a coastal run.” And that’s when they did coastal runs. They’d fly to Nome and go down to Elim or wherever, and then come back. I said, “Sure, just bring him here. They can stop here and do the coastal run and come back.” And so they did that. And I said, “Why don’t you just stay here before Iditarod with us?” So she goes, “Oh,” like, “okay.” So that was the year, of course, that Martin won Iditarod in ’92. So it was pretty amazing because you had him and Swenson and all these mushers, Sonny Lindner and all these guys coming in and out of the house. And it was pretty amazing. So from that point on, we just basically housed Martin and the whole group.

What is your Why? Why are you here TODAY and involved with the Iditarod?

So a couple things, I’m here today and involved with Iditarod because, first of all, while working for Alaska Airlines, we had a booth down at the Mini Convention Center. And we basically booked dogs and sell t-shirts and hawk all these wares, basically, to pay for everyone’s expenses while they were here during Iditarod because there was a different set of circumstances in terms of shipping the dogs out. And this was probably 30, 35 years ago. And with that, that group expanded at the Mini with all these women who would come up and help. And we ended up forming this pretty core group of women that we called the Village Girls. And our friend Marina and Dorothy were one of the first instigators, and we all worked together at the Airlines. And we did a little bit of everything together. So that was kind of fun. And I don’t say we volunteer for Iditarod. We volunteered to help the mushers. Because you’d have mushers come in, and they’d sell their dogs to get airfare back or whatever. But we just ended up with a great group of people that involved Martin and Kathy and then that circle expanded to their friends and their circle expanded to our friends. And we ended up doing a lot of stuff together in terms of solstice parties and birthday parties and just seeing everybody. And Kathy’s been up a couple times in the summer to go berry-picking. So it revolves around who we have in house and the mushers we have. We had the Junior Iditarod mushers stay with us a couple years ago. And then we ended with all of Martin’s handlers, once in a while come in. And we’ve got, who else is coming? We’ve had Magnus and just, I can’t remember all their names, but there’s so many people that come and gone. And they all really connect back during Iditarod. Just, “Hey, what’s going on? Or what’s happening?”

Tell me about just one of your most memorable Iditarod experiences.

One of the most memorable Iditarod experiences…there’s probably quite a few. One, the first time Martin won. That was fantastic. The second, third, and fourth time he won was pretty good too. I think just the people who’ve come in the house we’ve developed friendships with and just really have stayed in touch. And our friend Joy did a book about the Village Girls, and we had a lady, actually, who’s looking at it today. And she goes, “How many of these people are you still in touch with?” And I said, “Well,” and there’s a group, probably 15, 20 women. I said, “Probably pretty much all of them.” And this is after 35, 40 years. So it’s been really fun. And I think just the friendships are the things that I really experience and really enjoy most about Iditarod.

What in life do you know for sure?

What I know for sure in life is, basically, to be happy, be kind, and surround yourself with great friends.