50 years of Iditarod Champion Highlight - Emmitt Peters

With 2023 marking 50 years of the Last Great Race, and the 51st running, it's high time we look back on the mushers who had that magic ride into Nome in first. For the next few weeks as we count down to March 4, we'll highlight the 24 Champions of Iditarod. That's right, 50 races with 24 names on the Champion list. Just as more folks have climbed Everest than have run Iditarod, the Champions list is surprisingly short.  

The Yukon Fox

Photo from KTUU Sports archives.

The final rookie to win the Iditarod, Emmitt Peters was not a rookie to the sport. An accomplished sprint musher in his own right, he was encouraged to enter the Iditarod in 1975 after he ran the Fur Rondy Sprint Races where a sponsor would note that he had a "hell of a team" but that he was "running the wrong race." 

Peters had a dream of running the Iditarod and had studied the mushers from the last two races and everything about their runs, but he hadn't planned on entering in 75. With someone willing to foot the bill just days before the start, he headed to Ruby to train and prepare for a last minute entry (something that would not happen today). As Emmitt trained his team his mother - worried her son would freeze to death - and sisters worked tirelessly to make sure he stayed warm on the trail. The village of Ruby chipped in and sewed booties for the dogs. They say it takes a village to raise a child, it also takes a Village to outfit an Iditarod musher.

In 1974, Peters loaned his lead dog Nugget to Carl Huntington and they won the Iditarod. In 1975, Peters would run with Nugget in lead and she would be one of the key factors to his win. Nugget gained a reputation in her years as having the best memory of a dog - and musher. While Emmitt was brand new to the trail, Nugget knew where she was going and how to get there. She was a tough dog - one who refused to wear booties - and by all reports incredibly smart. In fact, Nugget would be a key component to the win.

Peters had decided to take his mandatory 24 in Ruby. Back in those days there were no rules about where one could stay on the trail/in checkpoints. Emmitt decided to 24 in his home village so that he could sleep in the comforts of home. Problem was his mother - like any mother would - did not understand the 24 hour rule and so whenever a team would come into the checkpoint or leave, she would come and wake a resting Peters up to tell him he had to leave. After his layover the musher left dog tired with a well rested and re-energized team.

As the story is told in the book Iditarod: The First Ten Years, Emmitt began to fall asleep on the runners so he climbed into his sled bag and slept as his trusty lead dog Nugget lead the team down the trail. Emmitt would later find out that he passed two teams while sleeping in his sled! 

Peters would be credited with starting the more modern race's run-rest strategy. Instead of going until everyone was tired to rest, he stuck with a schedule: run four hours, rest four hours. Sure, he was getting passed by his competitors as he rested, but his dogs were never too tired to give more when he asked. As decades pass the run rest schedule changes - it's now about 6 to 6, or mushers make the rule of "no more than 50-100 miles" depending on the portion of the trail. But it is key to never let the team get over tired. AND that means four hours of rest for the dogs, the musher must spend that time caring for the dog. Emmitt would be quoted as saying "you have to take care of the dogs better than you. They dogs are the main machine, doin' all the work. You gotta take care of them first." 

Peters would run the race a handful of times after his win, but he would only come so close as second. He is also the last rookie to win the race. As he came in towards Nome, a radio DJ believed him to be another musher. Emmitt corrected him saying something like "no, that guy's behind me," and so the DJ began calling Peters the Yukon River Fox - which has since been shortened to "The Yukon Fox".

Emmitt is still considered one of the greatest of Iditarod history for how he managed to not only beat the odds, but he shaved a ton of time off the record finish time. He dropped nearly six days off the champion finishing time. All because of his dog care strategy, and a dog named Nugget.

Emmitt Peters passed away April 2, 2020 at his home in Ruby. 

If you're an Iditarod Insider, you can view a clip of Emmitt Peters talking about Nugget from an interview in 2016(14?). You can also read the Anchorage Daily News' obituary for Peters here.

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50 years of Iditarod Champion Highlight - Carl Huntington

With 2023 marking 50 years of the Last Great Race, and the 51st running, it's high time we look back on the mushers who had that magic ride into Nome in first. For the next few weeks as we count down to March 4, we'll highlight the 24 Champions of Iditarod. That's right, 50 races with 24 names on the Champion list. Just as more folks have climbed Everest than have run Iditarod, the Champions list is surprisingly short.  

The Sprint Mushing Champion

Carl Huntington
Photo from Iditarod Archives.

The second ever Iditarod Champion was the first Native Alaskan to win the race. Born in 1947, Carl Huntington came from Galena, Alaska. Huntington's Athabascan roots gave him generations of mushing experience, and he was known as a competent sprint musher. In fact, Carl is the only musher to be champion of Iditarod, the Fur Rondy sprint races, and the Open North American Championships (ONAC). Ironically, while Carl would go on to win those sprint races, he holds the record for slowest champion time!

Carl grew up in a large family, and dog mushing was a part of his childhood. With only one sled to carry everyone, the older boys (one being Carl) would often have to run behind the sled on their way to "beaver camp" according to his younger brother Tom. Beaver camp was about a 20 mile run, talk about toughness.

Carl Huntington was a rookie heading to Nome in March of 1974. Not a rookie in the sport, but this was his first time on the still incredibly new Iditarod Race Trail. The 1974 race was a brutal one weather wise. Dick Mackey would write in his autobiography that on one leg he camped with Huntington and several other teams during an overnight windstorm where they piled the dogs together and the mushers hunkered down and kept each other awake all night because it was so cold. They would later find out that with the wind chill the temperature reached a lovely -130 degrees. 

Like many champions who would come after him, Huntington at age 27 came limping up Front Street. He had injured his knee along the trail and at one point was worried he wouldn't be able to finish the race. Huntington would credit his lead dog Nugget - who was eleven years old - with much of his success in getting to the finish line. Nugget was a dog from musher Emmitt Peter's kennel and Carl had borrowed her in 1973 for the Fur Rondy sprint races, which they won. Carl was so impressed with the dog that he asked to take her on the Iditarod the following season. Nugget, at eleven years old, became an Iditarod champion.

Huntington would sign up for the 1975 race, but did not finish. He went back to racing sprint and in 1977 would win the Open North American Championships. In the following years, as Iditarod would pass through Galena, Carl would come down to the teams to give them a once over. Iditarod Champion Joe May would write in 2014: "Carl Huntington came down to the checkpoint, marched up and down the teams and passed 'judgment'...usually with a cursory nod or shrug. With Carl, who had never been known to be wrong about a dog, a “judgment” was as from God to Moses from the Burning Bush.

One year, after scrutinizing my team, he walked to where the checker and I waited with bated breath. I was a mess..bloodshot eyes, ruined nose, peeling cheeks, torn and filthy parka. The checker asked, “what you think Carl?”. Carl looked me up and down and said, “dogs will make it—he won't”, turned and walked away."

Little is publicized about Carl's passing in 2000, but he is remembered fondly by many mushers who knew him. He left his mark in the sport.

For a little bit more on Carl's 1974 race you can read an article archived by the New York Times. Joe Runyan wrote about lead dog Nugget in a blog post for Iditarod insider. 

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50 years of Iditarod Champion Highlight - Dick Wilmarth

With 2023 marking 50 years of the Last Great Race, and the 51st running, it's high time we look back on the mushers who had that magic ride into Nome in first. For the next few weeks as we count down to March 4, we'll highlight the 24 Champions of Iditarod. That's right, 50 races with 24 names on the Champion list. Just as more folks have climbed Everest than have run Iditarod, the Champions list is surprisingly short. 

Iditarod's first Champion

Dick Wilmarth celebrates his win in Nome.
Photo: Iditarod Trail Committee Archives

Dick Wilmarth hailed from Red Devil, Alaska. An "unknown" on the 1973 roster, Wilmarth was a miner and trapline musher, not a racing team. Dick moved to Alaska at 17, leaving his logging job in Idaho behind. He and his brother were wooed to the Last Frontier with the promise of adventure and opportunity. Settling in the mining community of Red Devil, he learned to fly planes and got interested in mushing dogs. 

Born in 1942, Dick was 30 years old when he took off from Anchorage to Nome. Having heard about the race just a few months prior, Wilmarth cobbled a team with very little prep by trading goods for dogs out of several villages to add to his team for a total of twelve dogs at the starting line. He would later say in interviews that it was never about trying to win the race, it just sounded like adventure and he wanted to be a part of it.

As you can imagine, the first ever Iditarod race had its share of trials. There were no air drops of supplies in checkpoints in those days, and very little trail grooming (especially since what little was planned got sidelined when the snow was too much for the snow machines of the day to cut through). No trail had been set for years with just yearly clean up, and so it was more of an extended camping trip than a race. Still, as teams made their way to Nome, it was clear that the unknown from Red Devil was willing to take chances to stay ahead. Part of that, Wilmarth would say years later, was due to the fact that he had to keep moving to stay warm and stay fed. He would tell stories of nearly falling through the ice trying to get fish out of a fish wheel, and how he trapped beaver along the way to eat and feed the dogs. 

One of Dick's best known stories, perhaps, was in his telling of how he ran into a couple who were traveling who couldn't get their camp stove to light. He helped them get it started in exchange for a meal, they were hauling a load of canned goods including Dinty Moore's Beef Stew. Wilmarth said he ate six or seven cans of the stuff before continuing on his way (this was back before the no outside assistance rule was really a thing), a few miles down the trail he said his stomach started to growl - those "hearty meals" weren't Alaskan hearty.

At one point in the race, temps dropped to -50 degrees and some teams wanted to halt the race until conditions improved, but they could only do that if all mushers agreed. Like we've seen in more recent years, the future champ disagreed and felt he needed to continue, so he did.

Of the 34 teams that left Anchorage, only 22 finished, and Wilmarth was first to cross the finish line. He won a whopping $12,000 for the race's first ever win, and won Rookie of the Year (imagine that). He would tell reporters later that he had hoped to use the money to buy a backhoe. 

Wilmarth's win wouldn't be without controversy. There are two camps within the old timers and fans over if his win was legitimate. Some have accused Dick of having a lot more outside help than a few meals along the way, with some rumors to having used an airplane at one point. Dick Mackey would write in his biography in defense of the champion saying he ran close to Wilmarth for a lot of the race and never saw any signs of an airplane having touched down to carry the musher, sled, and dogs anywhere. 

Dick Wilmarth was a one and done champion - completely. He would not return to the race with a team again, which has also fed into the conspiracy theories. Chas St. George of the Iditarod Trail Committee would tell a story that when he asked Dick once why he never ran again Dick responded simply, "because I won." Dick would remain a part of the race lore and family, often showing up at a checkpoint to watch teams in, and in the early days would even fly race officials over the trail to give them a look at the teams from above.

Dick Wilmarth died in 2018 at the age of 75 after a battle with prostate cancer. He left behind a wife and six children as well as grandchildren. The race's first champion was part legend and part mystery, but is very much woven into the lore of the Last Great Race.


For some insights on Iditarod's first champion you can read the article by Tegan Hanlon for Anchorage Daily News after his passing, and view an extended clip of Iditarod Insider's interview with Dick for their documentary on Iditarod created to celebrate their 40th race. 

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