Granite The Lead Dog - Fairbanks Alaska
Posted by: 
teeoff2
N 64° 48.052 W 147° 54.865
6W E 456559 N 7186575
Granite the Lead Dog, led Susan Butcher to Victory in 4 Iditarod dog sled races.
Waymark Code: WM6KVK
Location: Alaska, United States
Date Posted: 06/17/2009
Views: 15
This is a great statue, and a very simple entry. The plaque states as follows:
Granite
Greatest lead dog
Iditarod History
Led Susan Butcher to Victory
1986, 87, 88, 90
Susan Butcher and her husband wrote a very nice book about Granite that was completed after Susan's Death. It is the story of courage and a will to win that led Susan, and her team to victory.
Taken from the following website
(
visit link)
BOOK SYNOPSIS
Susan Butcher was a four-time champion of the Iditarod Trail sled dog race. Granite was her greatest lead dog, but he didn’t start that way. He was a shy, scraggly pup that the others pushed around, but Susan saw his potential. Together they worked until he became leader of the team.
While they were training for the Iditarod, Granite became deathly ill. The veterinarians said he would never be strong enough to run the race. Granite refused to accept this, and slowly he started to recover. By the time of the race he was strong enough to start, but Susan wondered if he could finish the entire thousand-mile race. Confidently Granite guided the team into the lead of the race, when suddenly they were caught in a raging Arctic blizzard. Now Susan and the whole team depended on Granite to get them through the storm. He had to call on all his inner strength and courage to save them—if he could.