Emmitt Peters

Who is Emmitt Peters?

Emmitt Gordon Peters, Sr. the "Yukon Fox", is an Alaskan American hunter, fisher, trapper, and dog musher. The last rookie to win the 1,049 mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, he and his lead dogs Nugget and Digger shattered the previous speed record by almost six days.

Peters is an Athabaskan Alaska Native who was born in Ruby, deep in the Alaska Interior. He became a hunter, fisher, and trapper, and grew up around sled dogs. Mushing was the primary means of transportation in the rural parts of the state, far from the road system that spans southern Alaska, but the advent of the snowmobile in the 1960s almost drove mushing into extinction.