FORT KENT, Maine — I doubt there’s a musher out there who does not know where they were when cancer survivor Lance Mackey of Alaska and his Comeback Kennel dogs won the grueling Iditarod and Yukon Quest sled dog races within two weeks of each other.
That was in 2007, and it marked the first time anyone had won both races the same season. The then 37-year-old went on to repeat the back-to-back wins the next year which marked his fourth consecutive Yukon Quest and his second Iditarod.
On Feb. 9, The Century Theater in Fort Kent will be among 36 cinemas across the country showing the world premiere of “ The Great Alone,” an 82-minute documentary on Lance Mackey.
The venue was chosen in no small part to Fort Kent’s history of hosting the Can-Am Crown International Sled Dog Races which kick off this year on March 5.
The races Mackey ran are tough. Really, really tough.
The Yukon Quest runs 1,000 miles through the Canadian and Alaskan north and, while it gets far less publicity than the well known and better marketed 1,200-mile Iditarod Sled Dog Race of Alaska, mushers consider “the Quest” the pinnacle of all sled dog races due to its more challenging conditions.
Of course, a musher without his dogs is merely a race spectator, and Mackey is quick to give his team full credit for his success.
After winning the Quest in 2007, he was presented the race’s Veterinarians’ Choice award for dog care. At the time, he said, “this means more to me than winning this damn race.”
He’s a true competitor, a winner and dog man. He is a cancer survivor, too.
Diagnosed with throat cancer in 2001, he underwent extensive surgery and radiation treatments — none of which kept him off the runners.
He entered the 2002 Iditarod with a feeding tube still in place in his stomach, but he was forced to drop out of the race.
By 2005, he was back and won the Yukon Quest in his rookie year.
He’s run and raced on broken sleds, over conditions I can’t even begin to imagine, physically unable to eat and with his extremities freezing because of reactions to his cancer treatments.
As far as I am concerned, Lance Mackey is among the toughest competitors out there.
It’s something I often remind myself whenever I deem conditions too “extreme” or my own health subpar to head out to actually run the dogs. Heck, I’ve been known to let a hangnail or case of the sniffles keep me indoors.
From what I’ve been told, he’s also a standup guy.
I’ve never met him, and I am not a bit ashamed to say if I ever did I’d be more than a little bit starstruck.
It’s been close. In 2007, he was the guest speaker at the annual New England Sled Dog Trade Show in New Hampshire, and we’d arranged to meet for an interview.
A few weeks before heading down for the event, my late husband was diagnosed with cancer — malignant melanoma.
When I emailed Mackey to say I would not be able to meet with him, he replied with a very kind and honest cancer-fighting email, telling us “to be mad as hell and never give up.”
When Patrick passed away a brief four months later, Mackey again wrote to me and was again kind, sweet and to the point.
To those who know him, Mackey’s taking the time to express his condolences and support comes as no surprise.
“Lance Mackey is a lot like homemade pie. He might not look pretty, but inside is a delicious recipe refined by adversity, authenticity and soul,” Greg Kohs, producer-director of “The Great Alone,” said.
Jessica Holmes, a musher from Portage who has run multiple shorter distance races and this year has signed up for the Can-Am Crown International 250-mile race, got a chance to talk mushing, dogs and film when she met Mackey last fall.
Holmes traveled to East Hampton, New York, in October to attend a special preview of “The Great Alone,” and Mackey was in the audience.
“After, Lance and [his lead dog] Amp hung around outside the theater for a short time,” Holmes said. “I got to talk to Lance about running dogs. He truly enjoys talking about his dogs, [and] just like all mushers, you can see the love and admiration he has for his dogs.”
Had I’d been in her muck boots, I’m not sure what would have excited me more — meeting Mackey or Amp.
Holmes said she was thrilled at the opportunity for the one-on-one with the legend.
“He asked about the Can-Am Crown and asked me questions about how I started in mushing,” she said. “It was great and the movie was amazing, too.”
The documentary, filmed in the Arctic, follows Mackey and his Comeback Kennel dogs as they prepare to run the 2016 Iditarod.
Last year he completed that race in no small part due to the help of his brother Jason.
The footage of the brothers coming in side-by-side to Nome still brings some tears to my eyes and ranks in one of the most emotional race finishes I have ever seen.
“The Great Alone” took top honors, Grand Jury Prize at the 2015 Seattle International Film Festival and nine other “Best of Festival Awards” after that.
Maybe someday I’ll get to meet Lance Mackey and shake his hand. But until then, the Fort Kent premier will simply have to do.
Julia Bayly of Fort Kent is an award winning writer and photographer, who writes part time for Bangor Daily News. Her column appears here every other Friday. She can be reached by email at jbayly@bangordailynews.com.
