The Great Alone

Welcome to Front Street, Nome.

This is Iditarod 1978.

There's about 400 people here in Front Street, Nome.

Two mushers, Rick Swenson and Dick Mackey are less than a

mile from the finish line, the end of the Iditarod trail.

Oh, I can see the teams. They are neck and neck by golly.

From here Chris you should have an awfully

good view from your vantage point.

Dick Mackey right now is ahead.

He is pumping furiously.

The dogs are moving very well down the front street.

Dick Mackey is coming along.

Tom, can you see them any better now than I?

Here comes the first dog, the first lead dog, down the jute.

And that indeed is number 13; 13 is Dick Mackey.

They're both running.

Rick Swenson maybe 4 feet behind Mackey.

The dogs look awfully good. Here comes Dick Mackey.

The team is pulling up almost neck and neck.

And Mackey just, oh my God.

Dick Mackey collapsed. There's a crowd of people around Dick.

Mostly photographers. His son is with him right now.

Dick Mackey, the winner of the 1978 Iditarod Trail Race.

Official time is one second apart between the two racers.

It was 14 days, 18 hours, 52 minutes, 24 seconds.

Just finished 1,049 miles of an incredibly difficult trail.

Lucky number 13. He did it.

I remember like it was yesterday.

At 8 years old seeing dad win really, really stuck.

All I wanted to do was be like my dad.

I couldn't imitate him enough.

3,2,1 Go!

We're back at it again. Wearing bib number 5, Lance Mackey.

Back in 1978, father Dick won the Iditarod by one second.

Lance Mackey is on his way to Nome.

That's it. Hut, hut. That's it gentlemen.

When I was young people would ask me

'Are you related to Dick Mackey?'

It was a pretty big deal.

Good job guys.

Winning the Iditarod was definitely my ultimate goal.

It's a thousand miles over some

of Mother Nature's worst terrain.

I just wanted to accomplish what very few people have.

The Iditarod is a 1,049 mile sled dog race

across the arctic wilderness of Alaska.

More people have summitted Mt. Everest than

have successfully completed the Iditarod.

In 2013 Lance Mackey attempted his 12th Iditarod.

Hut.

That's it. Good boys.

Welcome to Nikolai Lance.

Morning.

I'll check your gear after you park.

That's beautiful. Hut, hut. Alright.

Lance Mackey is currently in 2nd place out of 66 mushers.

Lance Mackey is 2013 Iditarod. You're second into Nikolai.

Are you feeling good coming in here?

I'm kind of shocked at where we're

at and the way they're performing.

Have some straw. It's much warmer.

They're young yeah.

So I'm just driving this puppy team

according to what I think they're capable.

Ah, shit.

Knowing the trail that you have left

ahead of you, what's your plan?

What's your goal then for the rest of 2013 Iditarod?

Right at the moment I'm thinking

one checkpoint at a time, one run at a time.

You know? And just kind of trying

to stay, you know, at the moment.

Not thinking too far ahead.

Whether we get there first or twenty-first remains to be seen.

It looks pretty good at the moment.

Lance Mackey in Nikolai. Reporting for

Iditarod 41; I'm Laureli Kinneen.

Hut. Come on there. Hut.

That's it. Alright. Alright. That a boys'.

I tell people all the time when they'd ask me

'When did you start racing?'

I say 'Before I was born.'

He really did start mushing before he was born.

I was 7 months pregnant with him when

I was in the North American Race.

He had his little foot right under my ribcage.

And every time I'd kick, he'd kick.

And he was just kicking his way out.

He wasn't very big when he was born.

Oh, what a little terror in there.

Lance grew up in a dog lot.

When he was old enough to carry one

of these little kid's beach pails

and a little shovel he'd be out there and he'd give them food,

or he'd haul water or whatever.

As soon as he was old enough I built Lance his own

sled and sewed him up his harnesses and stuff.

He entered his first race and he won it. I mean it was great.

Every waking moment it was something to do with dogs.

Lance, are you going to boot them all?

Yeah.

5,4,3,2,1 Go.

Lance Mackey is on the trail.

Finish line will be where the banner is hanging up there.

Other mushers always at the house.

Our house was a congregating point.

And he'd sit there and listen to all of this

conversation about dogs.

It's hard to be in a room like that full of people

and not feel the excitement that they're feeling.

Or the energy that they're feeling.

And I want to be a part of that.

At the time I didn't know the significance

of who was in my living room.

Joe Reddington Sr. was at our house a lot.

That was Grandpa Joe.

The Iditarod was started because of

a gentleman named Joe Reddington

who saw the sled dog disappearing

from the native villages of Alaska.

And he didn't want it.

He didn't want the sled dog to disappear from the state.

And so he started this race to make

sure that those villages would keep the

sled dogs intact and that Alaska wouldn't

lose that part of their history.

Joe and I wrote down what we thought the rules would be.

The first one was that the race shall start on the first

Saturday of March at 10:00

in the morning regardless of weather.

The Iditarod is a thousand miles.

And it starts in Anchorage and it goes all the way to Nome.

It goes up over the Alaska range some of the

tallest mountains and peaks in the world,

it goes through the cold bank of the interior before

it hits the Yukon River and then the Artic Coast;

the Bering Sea Coast.

The rules are pretty bare bone jungle rules.

No assistance. You can come into villages.

You can take advantage of hospitality,

but there's no pit crew.

The winner will generally do it in less than 9 days now.

With mushers out on the trail for 14-15 days.

I've seen broken bones out there.

These people defy common sense.

They defy the average laws of toughness.

The very first year they didn't know

if anybody would even get to Nome.

You know?

And when they left we didn't know

if we'd ever see them again.

I'm proud of the fact that my dad was

involved putting this event together.

This is Lance's second Junior Iditarod. He is 15 years old.

He's one of the famous Mackey Iditarod clan.

All Lance ever knew was Iditarod. That's all he knew.

Lance Mackey 1986 Junior Iditarod.

Lance, congratulations.

You did your best boy.

Don't let nobody get in front of you.

Alright. Smile. The Mackey boys.

Those two were always up to something.

What one didn't think of, the other did.

We couldn't get away with nothing

You know they always say 'Mom knows everything.' Well,

you best believe they do.

She would catch us doing things sometimes

that we weren't supposed to be doing.

Sure enough, here she'd come. It's mom.

I started flying when I was big enough to reach the pedals.

Dick bought me an airplane for Christmas.

I just about killed myself in it.

I was safe. I mean I never cracked one up.

I didn't, you know, I never had

I went through the trees one time.

Mom's always been more or less a tomboy.

She always had short hair. Kind of looked like a guy.

She had no problem digging ditches and

banging nails or whatever.

She used to take us down to the airport

and just watch planes fly.

Landing and, you know, touch and go's and all that.

And you know our big thing was 'What kind of plane is that?'

I remember one day she took us down to watch the airplanes.

It was odd to see mom drinking beer

at, you know, 10:00 in the morning.

And driving for one. You know?

So something was up. It was real quiet.

I was sitting there watching these damn airplanes take off.

And she broke it to us that her and dad was splitting up.

He wouldn't be coming home.

Dad and I just ain't - dad's not going to live here no more.

Well, what did we do? You know?

How come dad ain't going to live with

us no more? Don't he like us no more?

You know? And they were little.

They don't understand. Hell, I didn't understand.

I had been with Dick since I was 19 years old.

What the Hell am I going to do now?

I didn't know.