The 31-year-old from Bethel is about to get on the runners of a dog sled for the 1,000-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race to try to spread the word to Bush Alaska that young men and women can make something of themselves in the Guard.

Granted, they might not get quite the same opportunity as Alexie, a sprint musher by trade who has spent the past five months hanging with one of the best long-distance mushers in the world -- Fairbanks' Lance Mackey, a two-time champion of the Iditarod and a statewide celebrity.

Not that it has all been fun and games.

"It's been an eye-opener," Alexie said. "All I've known is sprint racing."

A Fur Rendezvous Open World Championship sprint race veteran and a dog driver since 1990, Alexie had to forget just about all he knew about driving dogs when he hooked up with Mackey in October.

"He knew what he was doing, but he didn't know how to go camping," Mackey said.

But Mackey never doubted Alexie's ability to learn. Mackey himself was a sprint racer years ago while he made a comeback from throat cancer. Mackey, 38, was diagnosed with cancer after the 2001 Iditarod and in 2007 used the disease as inspiration to become the first musher in history to win the Yukon Quest and the Iditarod in the same year.

Molding Alexie into a long-distance driver wasn't nearly as arduous as beating cancer.

"All in all it's been really easy," Mackey said. "He's got an open mind."

Alexie had to be coachable when it came to learning the basic differences of racing sprint dogs and long-distance dogs.

In the Fur Rondy, dogs run three 25-mile heats and sleds are only equipped with lightweight totes that can carry multiple injured dogs if need be. Drivers also get to sleep in warm beds at the end of each day.

In the Iditarod, dogs face some of the fiercest elements from Willow to Nome and run for hours a day while hauling sleds that carry mandatory survival gear and mushers who wear heavy snow suits and bulky boots.

Mackey gave Alexie his first lesson in long-distance racing months ago on a training run in the White Mountains outside Fairbanks. The first lesson was how to use the piece of snowmachine tread between the sled runners, which mushers step on and use as a drag.

"He didn't know what that thing was," Mackey laughed. "With a sprint team you drag your foot a little bit and let the dogs roll for 20 or 30 miles.

"With my team it takes 20 or 30 miles just to warm up and get in a groove."

Next on the list was learning not to follow too closely. Alexie naturally wanted to draft Mackey's team. Mackey had to kindly explain how that's a big no-no in long-distance racing.

"Boy, he'd have them leaders just shoved right up the back of me and tailgating me the whole time," Mackey said.

Then Alexie learned how to slow the dogs on a downhill, and how not to slow down when dogs had to do their business.

"Sprint racers don't like them dipping snow and they don't like them crapping -- all the things that (long-distance mushers) are OK with," Mackey said. "That's abnormal to him. But he learned fast and that was comforting to me."

After all, Alexie has a big responsibility starting today with the ceremonial start that begins at 10 a.m. on the corner of Fourth Avenue and D Street.

Alexie is racing Mackey's B team, a group of yearlings and three Iditarod veterans. Alexie expects his strongest leader to be Hansel, an Iditarod finisher Mackey purchased from four-time Iditarod winner Martin Buser.

"The team (Alexie's) driving has the capability of keeping up with me," Mackey said.

Alexie's mission is to not only represent the Army National Guard in the Bush but also to learn skills needed to survive traveling through it.

He is part of the Alaska Army National Guard's battlefield surveillance brigade, which is learning how to operate and protect remote areas of the state, according to recruiting and retention Sgt. Maj. Clinton Brown.

Alexie's run will be a nostalgic one, mirroring Army Air Corps Maj. Marvin "Muktuk" Marston's quest in 1942, when he formed the Alaska Territorial Guard by traveling village to village in Western Alaska by dog sled to recruit members, some as young as 11 to defend the territory. Nicknamed Uncle Sam's Men and the Eskimo Scouts, the guard played a defensive role against the threat of a Japanese attack during World War II.

In an effort to encourage more villagers to enlist, the Army National Guard recruited Alexie, an Alaska Native who picked Mackey to be his mentor. Mackey was given $36,800 to train Alexie to run the Iditarod, Brown said.

Mackey isn't the only high-profile sports professional the National Guard has enlisted. It also supports NASCAR star Dale Earnhardt Jr., who sports a National Guard logo on his race car.

"I'd love to be the Dale Earnhardt Jr. for mushing," Mackey said.

Mackey said he's happy to help both Alexie and the Guard, even though he has no military experience.

"I know how to shoot guns and that's about it," he said.

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Find Kevin Klott online at adn.com/contact/kklott or call 257-4335.