HUMAN

Name: SUSAN WHITON
Age: 73
Residence: WILLOW, ALASKA
Occupation: RETIRED VETERINARIAN
Years involved with Iditarod: SINCE 1983
Iditarod Role: VOLUNTEER VETERINARIAN AND DOG MUSHER
Current Location: IDITAROD HEADQUARTERS
Date of Photo: SATURDAY JUNE 29, 2024 DURING IDITAROD PICNIC
Temperature: 69F 

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

I first got involved with the Iditarod in the 1980s. I was living out in the Aleutian Islands, and I was teaching junior/senior high school out there. And my good friend, Vern Halter, his good friend from law school was hanging out with Susan Butcher. And so Vern went up to the end of the Iditarod in 1981 and did the Sportsman’s race up there and got hooked at it. And then I started hanging out with Vern, went back to school to get a degree in counseling. Didn’t work, but Vern started to run the Iditarod, and I got hooked into that by hanging out with him. I ran my first 200-mile race in 1983.

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

So I’m still involved with dogs because we still have our sled dog kennel. We stopped racing competitively in the early 2000s, 2005, and started training other mushers. We’d lease our dogs out to other people who wanted to run the Iditarod. And we’ve also transitioned to, it’s expensive to have a dog kennel, so now we do tours in the summertime with our sled dogs. We introduce all the visitors to sled dog racing and the Iditarod. 

Tell me about your most memorable Iditarod experiences?:

So running the Iditarod creates tons and tons of memories. And a lot of them it’s fun to think about them, but one that was always sort of a sweet memory that I remember. I was going across the Farewell Burn, it was daylight. The snow was pretty deep, we had a pretty much of a trench, and off to the left on the surface of the snow were two red foxes. They’d found some lost booties, and they were throwing them back and forth just like a dog would throw with a toy. It was very fun to watch that wild animals playing around with the booty.

What do you know for sure?:

What I know for sure in life is that you have to keep doing challenges. I think the Iditarod was probably one of the biggest challenges of my life. And it didn’t stop with Iditarod. I’ve gone on from Iditarod, I’ve done other things. I went to vet school. I was a musher first, and then I went to vet school. I don’t run dogs much anymore, it’s too hard on my body, but what I do have now is a little dog that I’ve trained to do search and rescue. So I’ve stayed busy. I love working with the dogs, and so I think if you just keep doing things that’s going to keep your life worthwhile and meaningful.