Ten Feet Tall and Bulletproof is a story of classic Alaska, in the village where the Iditarod began. It features the courageous mushers who broke trail when the Great Race was only a rough trapline experience. At the Iditarod's inception in 1973, Ken Chase and George Attla were finishers, followed in 1974 by Jerry Riley, Rudy Demoski and Warner Vent. The following year Henry Beatus and Emmitt Peters came on, the year Emmitt won, and changed the race from campfire comraderie to a truly competitive contest.
Judy Ferguson, Fairbanks Daily News-Miner freelance columnist, has lived a re-mote Alaskan lifestyle for forty-eight years. Her histories of Alaska present the voice of classical Alaska, those who have shaped the land. Her children's books feature living indigenous elders with the traditional subsistence lifestyle. Doyon Foundation director, Bob Maguire, recommended, "Consulting continuously with cultural leaders, Ferguson is the first, in my forty years in Alaska Native education, to successfully portray the great variety of Alaska's First People."