HUMAN
Name: Bill McKee
Age: 77
Residence: Fairbanks, Alaska
Occupation: Retired Teacher
First Year Ran Iditarod: 2000
How Many Years Involved With Iditarod: 5
Iditarod Role: Musher
Current Location: Fairbanks, Alaska
Date of Photo: June 21, 2026
Temperature: 68F outdoors
Question 1: What is it about running sled dogs that you love so much?
What I love about riding sled dogs is, well, actually the joy of just running through the woods and across the lakes with these dogs, usually at night with the pitter-patter of their feet and the jingling of the collars and everything, and the panting, just hearing them. And the thing I really liked the most was that I was out there all alone, and I could get rid of all the cares of the day or anything I was doing. It was just me and the dogs, and I was just living there in the moment. And that was one of the main things.
And I also had the joy of raising the dogs. Over the years we had 17 litters-
… starting in ’95 with our first litters. And being a teacher and having summers off, it was great. That’s what I did. I raised dogs and trained them, and had a lot of fun with them. And we raised a lot of litters up to… Well, our last litter was 2010, and then those folks all died by just this year. It was so sad to see everything going. But that’s what I really enjoyed about it.
And the other thing was the relationship between me and my wife during this whole time because it was her idea, and I’ll get into that later. But just working with the dogs, I was a teacher. She’d been a med tech so she was the vet, the home vet that did everything. And it was just a really good combination because we never had kids, so these were our kids for the years. But that’s pretty much what I enjoyed about running sled dogs.
Question 2: What, who or how and when & why did you first get involved running the Iditarod?
I got involved with running sled dogs through my wife. So we were living in Colorado. And living in the mountains, rock climbing, skiing, doing all that stuff. I came home from rock climbing one day and Sandy met me at the door and said, “I just met Carla’s sister from Fairbanks, Alaska. And I want to go to Alaska to have sled dogs.” I go, “You’ve got to be out of your frigging mind.” And that was in 1988. Well, then after that, what we did was, Sandy found a video of Susan Butcher. It was an early VHS about her running the Iditarod and finally winning it.
And so we watched that, and then I think it was in ’91 I came home from school one day and said, “Okay. Ready to move. Let’s do it.” She got a job at the hospital. We moved up in ’92, brought our three old Malamutes with us, which I thought were sled dogs. And started to build a team. And for our anniversary in ’93, I surprised her with a map of going down to Forsberg’s in Healy, and looking at dogs, and then going to Rick Mackey and Patty Mackey’s place in Nenana. And we did that, and the next thing you know, we’ve got two dogs from Rick Mackey, and that was in the fall of ’93. And so we decided we needed to move out of town, bought a place in Two Rivers, and that was the beginning of getting all these dogs.
So Rick made some money on us selling us dogs, but we ended up going there in from ’95 on, we would go there at least a couple of weekends a month during the winter, and Rick would take us out and teach us what to do. And then we’d stay there with Aunt Patty and his daughter Brenda was only 14 at the time, and now God, she just finished the Iditarod. So that was the beginning of it. And Rick said, “Man, you got to give it a try.” So that was how we got started, what talked me into it. And we’d sit at Rick’s house and Rick would go, “Well, you’re going to go over this and this and this.” And the one spot I remember the most was when he said, “Oh, you’re going to go down the Dalzell Gorge and you’re going to go around this corner to the left and you’re going to be climbing. And then all of a sudden you’re going to drop about 200 feet or so down this big chute, and there’s boulders all over the place.”
And I just remember that night going through there in the dark and going, “Oh, here’s that corner. Oh, watch out.” Sure enough, Rick was right the whole time. So yeah, pretty much I got involved because of the Mackey family, but my wife and the Mackey family.
Question 3: Tell me about just one of your most memorable Iditarod experiences running the Iditarod.
My most memorable experience running Iditarod was when I was near the end of the race, and you could see Nome for the first time. And I stopped there, and I had nine dogs left. And I went up and gave each one of them a hug, but I gave a special hug to Old Smokey because that dog had… I mean, he was a big old boy who would run in wheel but also lead. And he had gone through the most because when he was two years old, he almost died. And Sandy brought him back to life by sitting up with him all night long with IVs and so forth. And I just remember that and I was just bawling my eyes out, but that was the most memorable experience. But other quick experiences there, going through the burn with the Aurora just ablazing, and my dad had just died a few years before that. And he had never gotten to Alaska to see it, and he’d always talked about wanting to see the Aurora. Tear up right now thinking about it.
But yeah, that experience and then… Oh yeah. And just at the very end going to the chute and just seeing Sandy in the shoot, seeing her little red and blue hat, I remember that. But then the final one out on the trail, the big experience was, I’m going through an area that they called the glacier. I don’t even think it’s there anymore. I don’t know. But I remember seeing the picture of Dewey Halverson going around it on one of the calendars from years ago, and I go, “Oh Jesus, it’s going to be tough getting around this thing.” And as I’m pulling up there, the guy that was in front of me, he stalled out, he couldn’t get up the ice. And I go, “Oh, I’m just going to go.” And I had a seasoned Iditarod veteran leader, and somehow we just chugged up the hill around the corner, and I thought this was a big experience knowing that we could make it up that one. And other people were having trouble and sure enough it worked. But those were the major experiences.
Question 4: What in life do you know for sure?:
What I know for sure in life is that we make choices that can lead to unexplained opportunities, and the decision to move to Alaska was one of those opportunities. And now we’ve got the choice where we’re leaving Alaska, and we’re not sure of the opportunities that we’re going to have, but usually things work out pretty well. So what I know for sure is that change is inevitable. It’s going to happen, and the best thing to do is enjoy the ride.