Dick Mackey

Originally from New Hampshire, Dick Mackey came to Alaska in 1959. He came from a rural background of hunting, living off the land, and being a woodsman and truck driver, so he fit well into the Alaska homesteading and frontier lifestyle. His first job in Anchorage was with the Alaska Railroad, and after getting a dog for his son, Rick, Dick soon got involved with dog mushing and eventually started racing sled dogs. Along with Joe Redington, in 1973 he helped start the 1000-mile long Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race that ran from Anchorage to Nome along the historic Iditarod Trail. As part of developing the race, Dick helped mark and brush out sections of the old original gold rush trail and lobbied for it to receive designation as a National Historic Trail. In the 1970's, Dick had learned to fly and bought an airplane, so some of his trail identification work was done from the air, with Joe Redington walking or mushing below. In 1978, Dick won the Iditarod by one second ahead of Rick Swenson. He continued to be active in dog mushing and racing around Alaska, served on the Iditarod Race Committee and was race manager for a number of years, and most of his children also have run the Iditarod Race, including Rick who won in 1983, and Lance who won four times from 2007 to 2010.  In 1981, while working in the construction trade, Dick moved to Coldfoot, Alaska, along the Dalton Highway (Haul Road), and transformed an old road construction camp into a truck stop and tourist destination with a gas station, restaurant, and accommodations. Not being able to stay away from dog mushing, in 1984 Dick established the 350-mile Coldfoot Classic dog sled race. After a busy nine years in Coldfoot, Dick sold the business and retired. He and his wife, Cathy, traveled to Hawaii and around the US in their RV, and in 1994, 1995, and 1996 they led RV tours up the Alaska Highway under the business name "Arctic Stagecoach Tours." Dick and Cathy Mackey eventually settled in Palmer, Alaska. For more about Dick Mackey, see the book, One Second to Glory: The Alaska Adventures of Iditarod Champion Dick Mackey. Memoir as told to Lew Freedman (Epicenter Press, 2001).