In 1975, Emmitt Peters won the Iditarod: as a rookie. Peters finished first in just the third year the Iditarod was held, and he did so by shaving a full six days off of the previous year’s championship time; his record wasn’t surpassed until Joe May’s run in 1980.
Peters’ incredible achievement, as he describes, “changed his life”: and it earned him the nickname “The Yukon Fox.”
At the Ruby checkpoint, our Iditarod reporter Laureli talked with Peters, who is still passionate about The Last Great Race, 35 years after he won it. He discussed nicknames, the mushers he admires in 2010, how his 1975 victory impacted his life, and his ideas on keeping new generations interested in dog mushing:
