National Geographic: Those Wonderful Dogs Page #5

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In the early 1900s sled dog teams

brought Peary to

the North Pole and Amundsen

to the South

When northern regions were settled

dogs became an essential part of life

Until the advent of airplanes

and snowmobiles

dogs alone transported mail

and supplies

pulled sleds, took hunters

in search of prey

Today in Alaska, the pioneering

spirit of that earlier times

is celebrated in a grueling

Beginning in Anchorage

and ending in Nome

it covers a distance roughly the same

as from Seattle to Los Angeles

Its name, Iditarod, is said to come

from the trail that

was once the lifeline linking far-flung

villages in the interior

Two-time champion of what is called the

"last great race on earth" is

A world-class athlete

and now a celebrity

she is going for an unprecedented

third consecutive win

She hopes to beat her 11-day record

and take home the $30,000 first prize

"Five minutes until we drop?

Yeah."

"I've been racing in the

Iditarod for ten years now

And I think over all the years

I've been basically in the top ten

and I think that all comes

from my training ability

with the dogs and the time

that I spend with them

and the conditioning

that I put on them

And then the rest has

to be up to the dogs

I've got good dogs

and I bred them and raised

them purely for long-distance racing"

Many observers feel that the time

Susan spends with her dogs

and the affection she lavishes on them

are key elements of her success

Fifty-three teams will leave

at two-minute intervals

"Ten, nine, eight, seven, six,

five, four, three, two, one, go"

"All right"

"Over the years I've really seen that

dogs love to

race and know what it's all about

When they see a team in front of them

they'll pick up their pace

and want to pass around them

And what I found out

is they know then

when there's no other team in

front of them

because there's no dog scent

on the trail"

In 1975 when she moved to

America's last frontier

the adventuresome 20-year-old

first lived in a tent

then single-handedly

built a log cabin

She was 30 miles from

her nearest neighbors

the nearest road

She started out with only three dogs

and today has a breeding kennel

with 130

Susan raises only Alaskan Huskies

a line bred from Eskimo and Indian dogs

"Well, I changed the teams

around today, David"

"Susan runs Trail Breaker Kennel

with her husband

David Monson,

himself a champion racer

"I was born in Cambridge,

Massachusetts

but I've always felt I was born in the

wrong century and in the wrong place

And so I kept moving

north and west

And I've always loved animals

and they've

been the most important thing

in my life

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