Word: monson
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Butcher studied to be a veterinary technician in Denver, after which she moved to Alaska, homesteaded in the Wrangell Mountains, and started to raise and train sled dogs. She and her husband David L. Monson now own a kennel of 150 dogs in their Alaskan home. They live in a log cabin, 12 x 16 feet, without running water. Butcher melts ice in the winter, draws water from a nearby stream in the summer, and generates a limited supply of electricity. The closest neighbor is more than six miles away, mail is 25 miles away, and Fairbanks--the nearest town...
...days a year, 12 to 15 hours a day, she trains her dogs. Butcher and Monson race five to 10 teams a day, building up the dogs' endurance like marathon runners until they can run 26-30 miles. "Then I can go anywhere with them," she says. "This is our basketball team, we have to pick our players, then we have to condition them physically...there is little for anything else...
...good mid-winter game" Butcher and Monson name their dog pups, she says. Often they name the dogs according to themes: Cracker's pups are called Ritz and Graham, and Gingerbread's pups have spice names. "Then we'll do books--shogun..." Butcher muses...
...husband realizes this. Monson laughs as he tells a story about a time when he and Granite, the lead dog, had gotten into an accident and Butcher's first reaction...
...Pamela Monson did a horrible thing. She has to live with the choices she made, but those choices are not something for the state to decide. If government has an interest in the health of its citizens and of the next generation, let it give them the education and the opportunities they need to lead happy, healthy lives. Until it does, policing their bodies is no substitute...