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Iditarod Champion Lance Mackey greets the crowd
at the Re-Start of Iditarod 47. Willow, AK. March 3, 2019. |
Around 12:30am on September 8 a simple message appeared from Dick and Cathy Mackey's facebook page "Our son, Lance passed away this evening after a long battle with cancer. More from all the family later." News slowly spread as mushers and fans woke to the news. Lance Mackey passed away on September, he was 52 and leaves behind two young children who just two years ago lost their mother.
Lance Mackey was probably the most famous of one of mushing's "royal dynasties". Lance's father Dick was one of the original trail blazers who helped Joe Redington get the crazy idea of an Iditarod Trail sled dog race off the ground. Dick would go on to win the Iditarod in 1978 beating young buck Rick Swenson by one second. The teams ran down front street together and seemed to finish in a tie - thus making the race marshal to declare that the winning team was the nose of the first dog to cross the finish, and that was Mackey's lead dog. In 1983, it would be Lance's older brother Rick who would win the Iditarod, making history as the first second generation champion.
Lance's story has been well documented through the years. His autobiography is still available for purchase, and the 2013 documentary "The Great Alone" is available on DVD and on several streaming platforms. Mackey's life was hard, admittedly at times by his own doing, and he didn't always make the best choices. Lance was always an open book to those around him - including fans - and that made him one of the most personable mushers in the history of the sport.
Just as Lance had returned to the sport of mushing, building a kennel seemingly on a whim after moving to Kasilof, Alaska (located on the Kenai Peninsula, and home to the start of the Tustumena 200). He started running the smaller races as he built up his home and his kennel in true Lance style (by the seat of his pants with scraps and throw aways).
During his rookie run in the Iditarod in 2001, Lance felt a lump in his neck after realizing he was having trouble swallowing. He would soon be diagnosed with throat cancer, and at one point doctors did not expect him to pull through. But by the 2002 Iditarod, Lance was back on the runners with a tube into his stomach for food and sponsorship from his team of doctors. He would scratch in Ophir that year, but he was already solidifying his legend status - and he hadn't won anything yet.
Just three years later Lance would start his run of dominating the sport of long distance mushing. He would go on to win four consecutive Yukon Quests from 2005 to 2008, and four consecutive Iditarod titles from 2007 to 2010, a feat that will most likely never be replicated. Mackey proved that the same team of dogs could win back to back long distance races in the same year, and did so with old school mushing styles and methods.
Mackey's first Iditarod win reinvigorated the imagination of mushing enthusiasts world wide. Lance was convinced he would win in 2007, especially after he drew lucky bib number thirteen - the same number both his father and brother wore the year they won. Talk about your Disney Fairytale story - he did just that. From there, we had the story of Lance dominating and infuriating his competitors in the Last Great Race. Many will remember the story of Lance sneaking out of the cabin in 2008 while Jeff King slept, solidifying his win against the "winningest musher". The two would be rivals for the next three years before Lance's string ended.
Lance's personal struggles reignited soon after his fourth Iditarod championship with the implosion of his marriage, and a string of financial problems. Like always, Lance was open with it all and didn't try to hide his struggles. After having to scratch from the 2016 race, Lance did not plan to run the race again - but like all of the other failed retirements of the Iditarod greats, he found himself back on the runners in 2019 just to have fun. His personal life was on the upswing again with a new partner Jenne and their two children. While his health was not the best, he just wanted to run the race and have fun. He came in 26th, and at the finisher's banquet won his entry fee into the 2020 race, so he signed up for 2020.
2020 would be a very difficult year for Lance. While he finished top 20 in the Iditarod, he would have it stripped away a couple months later when his drug test at the finish would come back showing he was on illegal drugs while racing. The musher once again was open and honest with fans, promising to get clean again. He would enter rehab and do the work. On his return to Alaska he would have just a brief bit of normalcy before he would lose Jenne in a single person ATV rollover accident. Lance was the one to find her on the trail. He was now a single dad of two little ones.
Lance chose to focus on his kids and in his hobby of car racing after that, and was enjoying racing cars in Alaska and Washington, when in the late summer of 2021 he was once again facing a cancer diagnosis. He chose to once again let the world in on his struggle and vowed to fight with every fiber and beat the cancer. By June of 2022 Lance would be in and out of the hospital and the outcome wasn't looking good. In August of 2022 he would give an interview to Iditarod Insider that gave an update on his condition. As always Lance was not ready to quit and was planning to fight to the end.
That fight ended in the late hours of September 7 with family and friends at his side.
And now the mushing world mourns. Tributes poured in all day on Thursday. Fans, photographers, journalists, politicians, and fellow mushers - some the bitterest of rivals - posted throughout the day favorite memories of the dog whisperer. If there was any question that Lance wasn't a beloved member of the mushing community, that can be put to rest now. One can only hope that Lance himself finally understood and accepted how much he meant to not just his fans, but his community.
