At my book sales stand I was honored today with a long visit from an old buddy, superb Athabascan dog man, the Yukon Fox, Emmitt Peters. 

Emmitt is among the very exclusive few in the Iditarod Hall of Fame. 

The Hall includes only the greatest of the great of “The Last Great Race.” 

Incredibly, in 1975 Emmitt knocked almost an entire week off the previous best winning time. 

In 1970 he and I worked together from the foundation all the way to the top, building that hotel with the vertical lines seen in this picture on the Anchorage skyline just to the left of the turn signal above/behind me. 

On the first Iditarod, I was at Emmitt’s house in Ruby repairing my sled aided by his deaf and mute brother Heinie, listening to the KNOM Nome radio.

The broadcast was an historic one for Alaska and all of sled dog racing. 

It was of the grand entry into Nome of trapper-gold miner-bush pilot Dick Wilmarth led by his fabulous Lime Village lead dog Hotfoot, as they became the first driver and team to ever cross the Iditarod finish line.