Happy Monday. We have an extended interview with friend of the Iditapod, Quince Mountain, who’s out there on the Iditarod Trail right now. Quince came in for a rather lengthy interview last week. We talked about his past and present, including Quince’s experiences being transgender. As far as we know, he’s the first openly trans person in the Iditarod. We talked about how, in an event that sees all genders competing against each other and not separated into categories, it doesn’t mean that much to the race itself, but that, as Quince says, means a lot to some people in terms of inspiration. We also talked about the origin of the Ugly Dogs, that’s a Twitter hashtag and kind of a group of fans who follow Quince and his wife Blair Braverman, who finished the Iditarod last year. And we talked a little about Quince’s expectations for his race, and about how Quince was on the reality TV show, “Naked and Afraid.”
[Related: Follow all of our coverage of the 2020 Iditarod here.]
Casey Grove is host of Alaska News Nightly, a general assignment reporter and an editor at Alaska Public Media. Reach him atcgrove@alaskapublic.org. Read more about Caseyhere.