“Balto” Hero OR VILLAIN?

Home , 1925 serum run to Nome, Balto, Dog sled, Frederick Roth, Gunnar Kaasen, Leonhard Seppala

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Hero or villain?

Read along with us as we search for the truth about Balto. Was he the hero of this crazy race against nature and time? Or, was he just one of the 150 sled dogs in the journey to bring the lifesaving diphtheria serum to the children of Nome, Alaska? The quest to accomplish the mission was plagued with white-out conditions, gale-force winds, cracking ice, and temperatures of 60° to 70° below zero. Balto, the dog sled team leader certainly didn’t ask for the task. But at the urging of his musher, Gunnar Kaasen, Balto and his teammates were anxious to begin their journey. Gunnar knew that Leonhard Seppala and his dog Togo were also waiting for their chance to earn Hero status for their involvement in delivering the serum to Nome. The stage is ready and set to accommodate the true hero.

Written and compiled by, Emmett (Don) Mason, Kentucky Colonel Mason’s Missives, 8/20/2020, Volume 29, Balto, Hero or Villain? 1

Forward

It was years ago that I visited New York and fell in love with Manhattan and its Central Park, arguably one of the most famous parks in the world. The park sits on 840 acres of high-dollar land in Manhattan between 5th and 8th Avenue and 59th and 106th Street. Manhattan is the smallest of the five boroughs (a smaller city within the massive New York metropolitan area) but still manages to draw over 40 million visitors each year.

If my memory serves me correctly it was on a warm summer day in 1927. I remember it well because I was so impressed by the Park Carousel, the beautiful Hallett nature sanctuary and the zoo with all of its exotic animals. Cleopatra’s Needle, an obelisk described as the oldest man-made object in the park, was originally erected in Egypt and moved to the Central Park in the late 1800s; not a small feat considering it was 69 feet tall and weighed over 220 tons. The park features twenty-one playgrounds, thirty-six ornamental bridges (no two alike) and twenty-nine statues. There is something to pique everyone’s interest.

I was so intrigued by one of those statues, a shiny, bronze figure of Balto, an Alaskan Husky/Malamute sled dog that I decided to write this story. The exhibit was large enough that children were climbing onto the statue and pretending to ride the dog. I found the story behind the exhibit to be irresistible.

I kept asking myself why this tribute to an Alaskan sled dog was placed so prominently in New York’s Central Park. Surely such a treasure belonged in Alaska near its place of triumph or accomplishment, and what exactly did this animal achieve that was worthy of such prominence? The question nagged at me to the point I began a research project to discover the connection, and reason that Central Park had a tribute to Balto.

My study yielded very little information about Balto and his musher but returned an abundance of material making a strong case for Togo, the other contender for hero. I would be remiss if I revealed my discoveries at this early point. However, I can provide an answer to the question posed and lead you along the trail that I traveled. Please feel free to form your own conclusions and opinions.

Why was this statue placed in New York’s Central Park?

The answer is because the residents of New York loved the story of the race against time and nature, and its canine participants. Consequently the dog lovers of New York raised money to commission a tribute to Balto, the Alaskan Malamute. The exhibit, pictured here, is located north of the Central Park Zoo near the intersection of East Drive and 67th Street. The sculpture was dedicated on December 17, 1925 and remains a popular attraction. The plaque at the base of the statue, reads:

“Dedicated to the indomitable spirit of the sled dogs that relayed antitoxin six hundred miles over rough ice, across treacherous waters, through Arctic blizzards from Nenana to the relief of stricken Nome in the winter of 1925.” Endurance · Fidelity · Intelligence

Those descriptive words represent the personalities and traits of the Siberian husky breed. The following pages help support these words and give fact and veracity to the deeds accomplished by the husky sled dogs.

Sled Dog Genealogy

The presence of grey wolves in Asia nearly 15,000 years ago lend creditability to the theory that modern dogs evolved from the grey wolf. This is further supported by analyzing the DNA of the grey wolf and the domesticated Siberian Husky. Both species shared over 99% in their DNA comparisons.

The descendants of the Husky are bigger and heavier than that of the wolves. The male Husky usually weighed 44 to 60 pounds with an average lifespan of 12 to 15 years. The male Malamute weighs ten to twenty pounds more than the average Husky.

The females typically weighed in around 40 to 50 pounds, while standing 22 to 24 inches in height. The Huskies with their mild disposition blended well with the intelligence, alertness, outgoing and friendly personality of those in and around the northern Alaskan territories. The Huskies double coat also made them well suited for the frigid arctic environment.

In general it can be said dogs are a distinct sub-species of the gray wolf that is different in both appearance and behavior from its wolf-cousins.

Another large difference between the species is that wolves are wild and rely on their own skills for food, shelter and security, while the dogs, being domesticated must rely on their owner, trainer or handler for food and other necessities

Nome, Alaska in the Real Early Days

Nome, Alaska’s history includes a 2000 year period when it was used and cultivated by the various Eskimo communities. That era basically ended in 1865 when Nome was beginning to be developed as a small fourteen acre plot of land situated along the Bering Sea located on the south coast of the Seward Peninsula. The northerly-facing land was later to be developed into an Eskimo community.

This new young community was settled in the Cape Nome Recording District and was populated by the Maemilult, Kauweramiut and Unalikmiut Eskimo Tribes.

When founded, Nome was isolated nearly 540 miles Northwest of Anchorage and only accessible by foot or dog sled. Later, the water port was developed enough to receive some passengers and cargo by ship during the summer months and (much later) by air with the completion of a make shift runway following the development of air travel. The harsh winter weather usually forces the closure of the local shipping lanes and nearby aircraft runways for a period of seven to eight months.

Nome’s winter is about seven months long. When the Bering Sea freezes at the end of October, Nome is cut off from Seattle, the nearest port. During the 1920s, there was no air service; experimental mail flights were restricted to the summer months. The only usable route in winter is a dogsled trail through Alaska’s interior to the ice-free ports in the southeast. When the last boat before the freeze unloaded its cargo and steamed away it left the people of Nome to care for each other through the winter. The hours of daylight vary with the season; such as October 11 hours and May about 18 hours.

The Eskimo people and their primitive culture continued to thrive for over a thousand years. However, around 1870 the number of Caribou (their main source of food) on the Nome Peninsula was in a rapid decline. The decrease of their readily available food source led to a mass relocation of Eskimos moving back toward the Alaska mainland.

The economic conditions changed considerably in 1898 with the discovery of Gold in the small Anvil Creek area of Nome. The discovery was attributed to Jalet Lindeberg, Erik Lindblom and John Brynteson. From that date the three young men were referred to as the “Three Lucky Swedes”.

The following spring when word of their Gold discovery reached Dawson city, the jumping off point for travelers heading north to Nome, it brought with it a surge of over 10,000 would-be prospectors, gamblers, and claim jumpers. Of course, the saloon keepers, prostitutes and ne'er-do-wells were at the front of the line. Each of them had a personal plan to strike it rich in their own way. Greed and gold spurred them onward to depart Dawson on the terrible trip to Nome and its unknown environment. Each individual was urged on by the prize they hoped to achieve in their search for riches and fame. The trip, almost one thousand miles of unbearable travel and 50° below zero weather conditions lay in front of each unsuspecting traveler.

The new arrivals were completely unprepared for the harsh weather and living conditions. Almost overnight an isolated stretch of tundra fronting the beach was transformed into a tent-and- log cabin city of prospectors. Most of them had set up tents on the flat beach area, (seen here) only to have them blown away by the fierce storms. Consequently they migrated inland hoping to find some relief and stability in their lives. By the end of the next year the number of prospectors on the Nome coastline had exceeded twenty thousand. Nome now contained fully one-third of the white population in Alaska, making it the territory’s largest city; with thousands of individuals hunting for the elusive prize, Gold. It mattered not that their reward was achieved by pick and shovel; the sale of whiskey or on the hard surface of a makeshift mattress, success was being moderately achieved by some of the players in the game.

Shortly after the Gold Rush began several investors helped built a small gauge railroad that served the Anvil Creek area. This railhead helped several dozen prospectors become millionaires. The picture wasn’t quite as rosy for those people who had purchased one way passage to the fields of Gold. Many became penniless and needed the support of the Army to get them back home.

The supply of gold and the lack of law in the region led to corruption and the dismissal of the local Judge. Judge James Wickersham a newly appointed unbiased Judge took over the legal responsibilities and helped provide some law and order to the area. By 1902 the more easily reached claims were exhausted and large mining companies with better equipment took over the mining operations. Since the first strike on tiny Anvil Creek, Nome's gold fields have yielded over $136 million dollars. The gradual depletion of gold, World War I, and the local economic conditions each influenced Nome's population decline.

In 1901 Wyatt Earp moved to Nome and went into the saloon business; this occurred shortly after he survived the Shoot Out at the O.K. Corral. Less than a year later he sold the saloon and headed south with $80,000 dollars in his cache.

As Wyatt was leaving town a youngster known as Jimmy Doolittle was starting school. Several years later this young student known as General Doolittle became famous for leading a flight of B-29’s on a bombing raid over Tokyo; this action was made into a movie and called, “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo”.

The next twenty years of Nome’s history came and went without any major fanfare. Over time there were several fires that destroyed many of the town’s old time gathering places. They were quickly rebuilt bringing us to the approximate year of 1923.

Nome, in the early 1920s

In 1887 Leonhard Seppala was born in Skiboin, Norway. Later he immigrated to Alaska and became a naturalized citizen in 1917. Early in his working career he followed his father’s blacksmithing and fisherman’s occupations. Leonhard, sometimes known as Sepp, didn’t start out working with dogs, though. He was recruited to Alaska from Norway by fellow Norwegian Jafet Lindeberg, who had struck it rich in Nome.

Lindeberg convinced Seppala to come work for his Pioneer Mining Company. The work was difficult for Seppala, and he regretted his decision to leave home – until he became a sled dog driver, mushing supplies up to 100 miles each day. When Lindeberg asked Sepp to train a sled dog team for an expedition that Roald Amundsen was planning, he felt he had found his calling. Although the expedition was ultimately cancelled and Seppala got to keep the dogs, this was the beginning of Seppala’s new career. In no time at all he began breeding, training and mushing sled dogs including a new species that he called the ‘Seppala Husky’. This new breed of sled dog soon became the musher’s choice for all major races. The sled dog was the primary means of transportation and communication in subarctic communities around the world. In Nome these duties were achieved by the nearly 150 local sled dogs, many of which can be attributed to Leonhard Seppala’s breeding program.

Dog Sled and Essential Equipment

If a great computer tried to develop a better dogsled than the ones old-timers made, it would fail. Dogsleds are an engineering masterpiece. New materials have opened up fresh possibilities, but the dynamics involved are the same. The following diagram is utilized to display the typical sled and its operating systems. Most sleds are equipped with two brake or stopping arrangements. The one identified as the claw is used as a brake and activated by the musher’s foot to help control the sled speed. The other system features a system that the musher deploys with his foot and serves to keep the dog team from moving the sled while it is parked. The dog sled itself is mainly constructed in two styles; one called the basket (below) and the toboggan style which has a long flat surface capable of carrying a

‘The Basket Dogsled’

6 larger load.

Mushers tend to favor sleds made from White Ash because of its light weight and durability. However, many homemade sleds were fashioned from Spruce or Birch wood that was readily available.

One of the musher’s main jobs is to kick, push and steer in a way that the sled goes as smoothly as possible without breaking the dog team’s rhythm. The smoother the musher’s rhythm, translates to faster sled speed.

Dog sled teams vary in sizes, ranging from six to a maximum of 16 dogs. The musher has his choice based on the purpose of the trip and the load to be moved, plus the musher’s experience level.

The typical musher carries the following items: a cold-weather sleeping bag that weighs at least five pounds, an ax, a pair of snowshoes, dog booties, a veterinarian notebook, a cooker and pot that can boil at least three gallons of water at a time, and enough fuel to boil three gallons of water, and one cable.

Most of these items are required equipment to be carried during racing events. Experienced drivers normally carry a small knife of some sort in case of emergencies.

It is not uncommon for a musher to carry a first-aid kit, one day’s food ration per dog and a fire-starter substance. During rest stops wrist wraps are placed on each dog. In many instances Groin protector kits are used to protect the genitals during wet or sloppy conditions.

‘Toboggan’ Dogsled

Alaska map showing dog sled trails and mileage from Anchorage to Nome.

Medical Care in Nome

Dr. Curtis Welch, about fifty years old, was the only physician in Nome, Alaska for over eighteen years. He remained the essential factor separating the civilized Nome from the uncivilized Nome community known for gambling, brothels and its rowdy lawless environment.

The Welchs lived in a corner apartment (see bank photo below) above the Miners Bank on Front Street, which ran parallel to the sea. Their apartment was next door to the lively hot entertainment spots in downtown Nome making it difficult to get a good night’s sleep.

Dr. Welch, assisted by his wife Lula (nee James) who served as his office nurse and anesthetist provided medical care to the residents of Nome. Others assisting Dr. Welch in support of the 25 bed Maynard Columbia Hospital included three nurses – Emily Morgan, Erin Crouch and Gertrude Fergus.

A personal description of the doctor and his wife is recorded in a letter written, in September, 1926, by nurse Gertrude Fergus, who had met the Welchs in the summer of that year. She saw Dr. Welch as a “queer, fidgety little man with a shock of white hair. A very red, sunburned face, tummy like Santa Claus ... and a flow of very expressive and explosive language....” Lula was “tall, dark, and rather dictatorial with an overbearing personality”. Although Fergus’s description might not make us eager to socialize with Dr. Welch, the records show that he was deeply devoted to his community’s health and wellbeing.

During the summer of 1924, while making out his order for medical supplies, Dr. Welch found that his stock of diphtheria antitoxin was outdated; accordingly, he ordered a fresh batch. When his order arrived on the last boat before winter, the antitoxin was missing. This was worrisome, as the specter of diphtheria was always before him, especially if a child presented with tonsillitis. On the other hand, in his eighteen years of practice on the Seward Peninsula, he had never actually seen a confirmed case of the disease.

The first hint of approaching trouble came in December, 1924, when an Eskimo child from a nearby village died, seemingly of tonsillitis. Two more children died subsequently, but the cause was not clear. Then, on January 20, 1925, Dr. Welch saw the typical gray, bloody lesions of diphtheria in the throat and mouth of a three-year-old boy. Afraid to use his outdated stock of antitoxin, he resorted to the old, nonspecific remedies; after a temporary improvement, the child died.

The next day Welch saw another child, a seven-year-old girl, with unmistakable diphtheria. When children began dying while feverish and struggling for breath, it was Nurse Morgan who first realized how dangerous the situation was, “Dr. Welch didn't figure it out. He thought it was tonsillitis. But I had diphtheria, years ago, and I’m the one who first recognized the symptoms."

“Angel of the Yukon” Nurse Emily Morgan

Records reflect that Nurse Emily Morgan was sent by the Red Cross in 1923 to assist the local physician. Over time she assumed other responsibilities as superintendent of Maynard Columbus Hospital and the nurse in charge of the city diphtheria quarantine program.

Emily was born in Spring Township, Kansas in 1878 and spent her childhood growing up in Butler County, Kansas. She received her nurses training at the Ensworth School of nursing, graduating in 1908. In 1924 she became involved in diagnosing the Diphtheria epidemic of Nome in its early stages. As the epidemic worsened she became more involved in treating the natives and miners.

Emily was normally clad in multiple layers of wool and fur, as she tramped in mukluks from house to house with serum, syringes and a flashlight. Her patients were mainly native families, not miners; it was not proper for a single woman to be alone with a man in those days. She prayed with distraught mothers and children terrified by the needle. She also helped a grieving father build a coffin for his son and gave candy as a reward to kids who took their shots.

During a personal interview later in her life, Emily (pictured) uttered this statement; “when all is said and done, I was the privileged instrument in the hand of fate. Whatever fame has been attached to me, I have worn it humbly”. She continued to work in Alaska until 1947 when she returned to Kansas.

Emily the “Angel of the Yukon”, died in El Dorado, Kansas in May of 1960 just four months before Gunnar Kaasen died in Everett, Washington in November of the same year.

The Angel finally received her reward in 2013 when she was selected to become a member of the “Alaska Women’s Hall of Fame”. The award was well received and appreciated; but 97 years late zaps some of the Award’s prestige and stature.

The Great Race of Mercy - aka – The Great Serum Run of 1925

After the deaths of the two more Iñupiaq children, Dr. Welch realizes that diphtheria is spreading in Nome, and the only vaccine in stock is expired. Welch immediately phoned the mayor, who summoned the Town Council into emergency session. On January 22, Welch fired off a telegram (page 11) to the US Public Health Service in Washington, urgently requesting diphtheria antitoxin. Within one week, the diphtheria epidemic in Nome was front-page news all over the United States.

“An epidemic of diphtheria is almost inevitable here STOP I am in urgent need of one million units of diphtheria antitoxin STOP Mail is only form of transportation STOP I have made application to Commissioner of Health of the Territories for antitoxin already STOP There are about 3000 White natives in the district.” —Telegram from Dr. Curtis Welch to Alaska Territorial Governor Scott Bone in Juneau, and to the U.S. Public Health Service in Washington D.C.

A thousand miles away in Anchorage, stirred by memories of recent year’s epidemics, dog team drivers, both white and Native Alaskan, agree to relay the diphtheria antitoxin from Anchorage to Nome via dog sleds, a distance of 674 miles (1,085km). This undertaking, by 20 mushers and about 150 sled dogs, became to be known as the 1925 Serum Run to Nome - The Great Race of Mercy - and The Serum Run.

Over five days, the twenty selected mushers and their sled dogs braved gale force winds, whiteout conditions, sub-zero temperatures and cracking ice to bring the serum to the sick children.

The men and dogs risking life and limb were pushed to the limit. They were near exhaustion while accounts of the serum relay included numerous sled dogs that were owned by whites, Eskimo and local natives. Everyone that was able took part in the relay. Four of the drivers were from the Athabasca and Tanna tribes; while special emphasis was given to the postal worker mushers who were used to delivering the mail by sled, regardless of the weather conditions.

The dog who inevitably gets credit for saving the town is Balto, lead dog on the final team which actually delivered the serum. But few people have ever heard of 12-year-old Togo and his musher Leonhard Seppala, who carried the serum for almost double the length of any other team, and twice violated warnings to avoid perilous Norton Sound and instead ran straight over the frozen ice!

Both the mushers and their dogs were portrayed as heroes in the newly popular medium of radio, and received headline coverage in newspapers across the United States. Balto, the lead sled dog on the final stretch into Nome, became the most famous canine celebrity of the era. And his statue remains a popular tourist attraction in both New York City's Central Park and downtown Anchorage, Alaska.

However, it was Togo who covered the longest stretch out of the run which is 260 miles while Balto covered just 55 miles. The publicity also helped spur a diphtheria inoculation campaign in the U.S. that dramatically reduced the threat of the disease. Some of the dogs, including Togo and Balto, became national heroes. Their efforts, and those of the courageous mushers, are commemorated every March by the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.

Balto, Team Leader

Gunnar Kaasen and his team of motley huskies were relatively unknown to the many spectators that had gathered on Front Street to watch the relay event. They were unknown because the team was owned by Leonhard Seppala the crowd favorite and most experienced musher in the area. Leonhard Seppala had selected his own team of twenty sled dogs from his kennel, leaving the remaining dogs to be chosen by Kaasen and were on loan from Seppala’s kennel.

Balto, the lead dog relied on scent rather than sight to guide his 13 teammates along the trail when ice began forming on his coat. Kaasen himself at age of twenty-one years moved from Norway to Nome looking for that elusive Gold Strike that never came. Over time Gunnar worked at many odd jobs, including as a part time musher for the Seppala group. He gained the experience and skills necessary to be selected as one of the volunteers.

Of the twenty teams in the nearly 700 mile relay race, Kaasen and his lead dog Balto were assigned the next to last leg of the relay. Available records do not provide the names of those making the leg assignments.

Fate must have had some input in Balto and Kaasen’s final leg assignment. Seppala had bred both Balto and Togo (his own team leader and champion); it’s possible that Kaasen was also employed by Seppala and his partners in the mining business on the day of the relay.

In 1925, ten months after Balto completed his run, that bronze statue, sculpted by Frederick George Richard Roth, was erected in his honor in Central Park near the Tisch Children's Zoo. 12

The following Serum Run chart contains the date, the musher’s names and cities along the route as well as the time used by the musher for his leg of the relay.

The data is available elsewhere in bits and pieces leaving a lot to the imagination and many blanks in the story. With Wikipedia’s approval it is included here as part of the factual history.

Relay participants and distances

Mushers (in order) and the distances they covered. Most legs were planned to be about 25 miles long, generally accepted as an "extreme day's mush".

Start Musher Leg Distance

Nenana to Minto to Tolovana Team of 11 Alaskan Malamutes. Around 11:00 pm January 27, 1925, Shannon received the serum and written instructions from the conductor. Temperatures ranged from −40 °F to −62 °F. At 3:00 am, Shannon January "Wild" Bill 52 mi arrived in Campbell's Roadhouse in Minto, rested for four 27 Shannon (84 km) hours before setting off again, this time with only 8 dogs as three of his dogs, Cub, Jack and Jet, and had been injured from the cold. Later, these three dogs ended up dying from lung injuries. Shannon suffered severe facial frostbite.

January Tolovana to Manley Hot Springs 31 mi Dan Green 28 Temperatures warming to −30 °F, but a 20 mph wind (50 km)

Manley Hot Springs to Fish Lake Johnny Made run at night and is reported to have made 'good 28 mi Folger time'. Folger was an Athabascan Native. Met Sam Joseph (45 km) and his team at a Fish Lake cabin.

Fish Lake to Tanana A Tanana tribe Native, 35 years old, with a team of 7 Alaskan Malamutes. Recorded Tanana temperature 26 mi Sam Joseph was −38 °F. Covered trail in 2 hours 45 minutes, (42 km) averaging better than 9 mph. Met by his family and Titus Nickolai.

Tanana to Kallands January An Athabascan Native, no information regarding Titus's 34 mi Titus Nikolai 29 team, time, or travel along the trail. Met Dave Corning at (55 km) Kallands.

Kallands to Nine Mile Cabin Dave Reported to have averaged 8 mph for the 24 miles. Again 24 mi Corning no mention of exact times or the team. Met by Edgar (39 km) Kalland at Nine Mile Cabin.

Nine Mile Cabin to Kokrines Edgar 30 mi A musher for the U.S. mail service. Met by Harry Pitka at Kalland (48 km) Kokrines.

Kokrines to Ruby 30 mi Harry Pitka Seven dogs with trail in good condition. Night run with (48 km) speeds averaging greater than 9 mph.

Ruby to Whiskey Creek Lead dog: Prince. Severe hour-long snow storm. Arrived 28 mi Bill McCarty at Whiskey Creek about 10:00 am Temperature −40 °F. (45 km) Met by Edgar Nollner.

Whiskey Creek to Galena Edgar Lead dog: 8 year-old Dixie. Nollner, a 21 year-old from 24 mi Nollner Galena, mushed 7 malamutes and was met by his brother (39 km) George.

Galena to Bishop Mountain January George Newlywed George appears to have made the trip using 18 mi 30 Nollner the same team Edgar used to cover the previous (29 km) 24 miles.

Bishop Mountain to Nulato Charlie Half Athabascan Native, Evans, 21 years old, left Bishops 30 mi Evans (48 km) Mountain at 5:00 am with a reported temperature of −64 °F. Arrived at Nulato at 10 am covering 30 miles in

5 hours running a 9 dog team. Two borrowed dogs suffered frozen groins on the trip.

Nulato to Kaltag Tommy Patson, a Koyukuk Native, also a mail carrier, ran a fairly 36 mi "Patsy" straight trail, setting the fastest speed recorded during the 1 (58 km) Patson Serum Race, covering 36 miles in 3 ⁄2 hours at an average speed of more than 10 mph.

Kaltag to Old Woman Shelter An Alaskan Athabaskan, Jackscrew was a small man Jack known for his unusual strength. During his partial night 40 mi "Jackscrew" run, he jogged to lighten the sled until passing the Kaltag (64 km) Nicolai Divide, then a downhill trail toward Norton Sound. Arrived at Old Woman Cabin a 9:10 pm Friday evening, averaging almost 6 mph for 40 miles of difficult trail.

Old Woman Shelter to Unalakleet Anagick, an Eskimo Native, was sent from Unalakleet Victor 34 mi with an 11 dog team. Covered the 34 mile trail in 6 hours Anagick (55 km) arriving at 3:30 am Saturday. The serum was now 207 miles from Nome.

January Myles 40 mi Unalakleet to Shaktoolik 31 Gonangnan (64 km)

Shaktoolik to just outside Shaktoolik Part Russian Eskimo, Ivanoff started toward Golovin. About a half mile out of Shaktoolik, he had to settle a fight 0.5 mi Henry Ivanoff in his team. While he was stopped he saw (0.8 km) Seppala's Siberian Husky team approaching from the other direction. Passes serum to Seppala a short distance out of town.

Just outside Shaktoolik to Ungalik to Isaac's Leonhard Point to Golovin 91 mi Seppala Lead dogs: Togo and Scotty, team of 6 Siberian Huskies. (146 km) Forty-eight-year-old Seppala, with a team of 6 dogs had left Nome with the intent of intercepting the serum at

Nulato, unaware that the relays had been faster. Leaving Isaac's Point on the north side of Norton Bay that morning, traveled the 43 miles to just outside Shaktoolik, meeting Ivanoff. Turned his team around into the wind with a temperature of −30 °F and darkness. Risked the 20 mile sea ice crossing between Cape Denbigh and Point Dexter in a blinding blizzard. Togo's sense of smell permitted them to stay on course and got them to their stopping point on the North shore of Norton Bay, at an Eskimo sod igloo. Seppala fed the dogs and warmed the serum, hoping the blizzard would lessen. Early Sunday morning with −30 °F temperatures, deadly winds, and the storm not lessening, reached Dexter's Roadhouse at Golovin with completely exhausted dogs. Serum now 78 miles from Nome.

Golovin to Bluff Lead dog: Jack, team of 7 Alaskan Malamutes. Olsen had left Gunnar Kaasen at the Olson Roadhouse and traveled to Golovin to await the serum. Left Golovin at 3:15 Sunday afternoon with temperatures −30 °F with an February Charlie estimated 40 mph wind. Hit by gusts that drove him and 25 mi 1 Olson the team off the trail. Because of the severe wind chill, (40 km) Olsen stopped, putting blankets on each dog. Two dogs suffered badly frozen groins. Arrived at Olson's Roadhouse about 7:30 pm surprising Gunnar Kaasen who thought Olsen might have stopped to wait out the storm.

Bluff to Safety to Nome Lead dog: Balto. Forty-two-year-old Kaasen and his team of 13 dogs were sent from Nome to Bluff to await the serum, while Ed Rohn was sent to Pt. Safety. With chest- deep snow drifts and glare ice, he was unable to see the Gunnar trail and relied on Balto to guide the sled. A message was 53 mi Kaasen sent to the village of Solomn instructing Kaasen to wait (85 km) out the storm there. Due to the severity of the storm, Kaasen missed the village as Balto kept them on the main trail passing to the south. Crossing Bonanza flat the sled was flipped by the wind, ejecting the serum. After searching in the dark on hands and knees, Kaasen found the package and continued. Arrived at Safety sometime

after 2:00 am Sunday.

Musher Ed Rohn, who was supposed to take the Serum the final leg into Nome, was asleep expecting Kaasen to be held up waiting out the blizzard. Kaasen, deciding not to wake Rohn, began the final 21 mile leg, arriving in Nome around 5:30 am, for a total time of seven and a half hours.

Gunnar Kaasen aware of the terrible storm brewing outside waited until 10 pm for the storm to break, but it only got worse and the drifts would soon block the trail so he departed into a headwind.

Gunnar Kaasen and his borrowed dog, Balto are pictured to the left. Kaasen traveled through the night, through drifts, and river overflow over the 600-foot (183 m) Topkok Mountain. Balto led the team through visibility so poor that Kaasen could not always see the dogs harnessed closest to the sled. He was two miles (3 km) past Solomon before he realized it, and kept going. The winds after Solomon were so severe that his sled flipped over and he almost lost the cylinder containing the serum when it fell off and became buried in the snow. He also suffered frostbite from using his bare hands to search in the deep snow for the lost cylinder.

Kaasen reached Point Safety ahead of schedule on February 2, at 3 am. Ed Rohn believed that Kaasen and the relay were halted at Solomon, so he was sleeping. Since the weather was improving, it would take time to prepare Rohn's team, and Balto and the other dogs were moving well. Kaasen chose to continue on to Nome. No one other than Gunnar Kaasen can prove that Gunnar had any ulterior motive other than getting the serum to its destination.

Those readers wanting to compare the two sled teams should read the commentary on Seppala’s team and trip to Golovin on 31 January. The trip comments state that Togo and his team covered 91 miles and were thoroughly exhausted when they reached their destination. Gunnar’s comments after his final leg also indicated that his team was exhausted, making it impossible for comparison or analysis.

In spite of the many mishaps and hazardous trails not a single ampule was broken. The antitoxin was thawed and ready for use by noon. Three weeks after injecting the needy residents of the town the quarantine was lifted.

Together, the teams covered the 674 miles (1,085 km) in 127 ½ hours, which was considered a world record, done in extreme subzero temperatures in near-blizzard conditions and hurricane-force winds. At

17 least five dogs died and many others (including TOGO) were injured during the trip. Many of the mushers came down with frostbite, frozen fingers, toes and facial injuries.

All participants in the dogsleds received letters of commendation from President Calvin Coolidge, and the Senate stopped work to recognize the event. Each musher during the first relay received a gold medal from the H. K. Mulford Company. The Mayor of Los Angeles presented a bone-shaped key to the city to Balto in front of City Hall; silent-film actress Mary Pickford put a wreath around the canine's neck. Poems and letters from children poured in, and spontaneous fundraising campaigns sprang up around the country.

Forty-two year old Gunnar Kaasen and his team became celebrities and toured the U.S. West Coast from February 1925 to February 1926, and even starred in a 30 minute film entitled Balto's Race to Nome. A statue of Balto by sculptor Frederick Roth was unveiled in New York City's Central Park during a visit on December 15, 1925. The fact that Gunnar (with the approval of Seppala) sold his team to an unprepared entrepreneur speaks volumes about Kaasen and his personal integrity. There was no evidence found that the two mushers talked about or agreed to a sale of Balto and his teammates.

Balto and Kaasen’s other dogs later became part of a vaudeville sideshow and lived in horrible conditions until they were rescued by George Kimble, who organized a fundraising campaign by the children of Cleveland, Ohio. On March 19, 1927, the dogs received a hero's welcome as they arrived at their permanent home at the Cleveland Zoo. Because of his age, Balto was euthanized on March 14, 1933, at the age of 14. He was mounted and placed on display in the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

BALTO’s Abbreviated Story

There is much debate surrounding Balto's role in the serum run and the statue in Central Park. Much of the controversy was initiated by premier musher Seppala who was scheduled to run 170 miles (270 km) across some of the most dangerous and treacherous parts of the run. He met the serum runner (to his surprise, since he had anticipated having to make the entire run alone), took the handoff, and returned another 91 miles (146 km), having run over 261 miles (420 km) in total. He then handed the serum off to Charlie Olson. Olson carried it 25 miles (40 km) to bluff where he turned it over to Gunnar Kaasen.

Kaasen was supposed to hand off the serum to Rohn at Port Safety, but Rohn had gone to sleep and Kaasen decided to keep going to Nome. In all, Kaasen and Balto ran a total of 53 miles (85 km). Kaasen maintained that he decided to continue since there were no lights on in the cabin where Rohn was sleeping and he didn't want to waste time.

While many thought his decision to not wake Rohn was motivated by a desire to grab the glory for himself and Balto. It was about 5 a.m. when Gunnar turned Balto and his teammates onto Front Street. A few spectators were present to observe the team as they yipped and yapped their way up Front Street

18 to deliver the serum to Doctor Curtis. Kaasen handed the vital serum to the Doctor just before he collapsed from exhaustion while muttering, “Damn fine dog”.

Rebuttal of Balto’s accomplishments

After the relay had ended there was a flurry of resistance stated by the Seppala camp and others that were familiar with Seppala’s team of sled dogs. The following comments from individuals rebutting the results of the relay are included for your review. Trying to compare the performance of the two different teams seems to be an effort in futility since there is nothing to compare other than the distance covered by the separate teams. The disagreement surrounding the team that actually delivered the serum should have been anticipated by people on the relay selection committee. It was common knowledge that the team completing the final leg of the relay is usually declared the winner.

According to Togo's musher, Leonhard Seppala, Balto was a scrub freight dog that he left behind when he set out on the trip. He also asserted that Kaasen's lead dog was actually a dog named Fox, but that news agents of the time thought that Balto was a more news worthy name.

The Central Park statue of Balto was modeled after Balto, but shows him wearing Togo's colors (awards). The inscription reads, "Dedicated to the indomitable spirit of the sled dogs that relayed antitoxin 600 miles over rough ice, across treacherous waters, through arctic blizzards, from Nenana to the relief of stricken Nome”.

Katy Steinmetz, writing in Time magazine, also thought that Togo was the greatest sled dog of all time. In the serum run, she wrote, ‘Togo was the real hero:... the dog that often gets credit for eventually saving the town is Balto, but he just happened to run the last, 55 mile leg in the race. The sled dog who did the lion's share of the work was Togo. His journey, fraught with white-out storms, was the longest by 200 miles and included a traverse across perilous Norton Sound — where Togo saved his team and driver in a courageous swim through ice floes”.

Though Balto often gets the credit for saving the town of Nome, it was Togo, a Siberian husky, who led his team across the most dangerous leg of the journey. Named after Heihachiro Togo, a Japanese Admiral who fought in the war between Russia and Japan (1904-05), Togo was the lead sled dog of Leonhard Seppala. Despite the attention lavished on Kaasen and Balto, many mushers today consider Seppala and Togo to be the true heroes of the run, as they covered the longest and most hazardous leg. They made a round trip of 261 miles (420 km) from Nome to Shaktoolik and back to Golovin, and delivered the serum a total of 91 miles (146 km), almost double the distance covered by any other team. After Kaasen's return, he was accused of being a glory hog. In the last years of his life Seppala was heartbroken by the way the credit had gone to Balto; in his mind, Togo was the real hero of the serum race. According to the National Park Service, in 1960 Seppala said: “I never had a better dog than Togo. His stamina, loyalty, and intelligence could not be improved upon. Togo was the best dog that ever traveled the Alaska Trail”. 19

Even before the Serum relay was set up, Seppala was considered to be the fastest musher in Alaska and was frequently called the, “King of the Trail.”

Roald Amundsen and Leonhard Seppala with a dog sled team on a snowy trail near Nome, Alaska, 1923

In October 1926, Seppala took Togo and his team on a tour from Seattle to California, and then across the Midwest to New England, and consistently drew huge crowds. They were featured at Madison Square Garden in New York City for 10 days, and Togo received a gold medal from Roald Amundsen, who led the first expedition to the South Pole in 1911. Two years Amundsen later disappeared while taking part in a rescue mission for the airship Italia in 1928. In New England Seppala's team of Siberian huskies ran in many races, easily defeating the local Chinooks.

Seppala sold most of his team to a kennel in Poland Spring, Maine. Seppala continued to visit Togo until he was euthanized on December 5, 1929. After Togo’s death, Seppala had him preserved and mounted, and today the dog is on display in a glass case at the Iditarod museum in Wasilla, Alaska.

Seppala and his Siberians also toured the country and even appeared in an advertising campaign for Lucky Strike cigarettes. Seven years later Seppala Placed third with a bronze medal in the 1936 Olympics at Lake Placid, New York. He also participated in a dog sled demonstration race, placing second during the 1936 Pre-Olympics.

In 1967 at the age of 89 he died in Seattle, Washington. His body was interred at Nome along with his wife Constance. He wrote in his diary at age 81, “While my trail has been rough at times, the end of the course seems pretty smooth, with downhill going and a warm roadhouse in sight. And when I come to the end of the trail, I feel that along with my many friends, Togo will be waiting and I know that everything will be all right.”

None of the other mushers received the same degree of attention, though Wild Bill Shannon briefly toured with Blackie. The media largely ignored the Athabaskan and Alaskan Native mushers, who covered two-thirds of the distance to Nome. According to Edgar Kalland, "it was just an everyday occurrence as far as we (the Natives) were concerned.

End

Prologue

The Nome Great Serum Race officially ended on 2 February of 1925. The individuals that were infected with the Diphtheria virus have long since been cured or passed on to meet their maker.

The serum run was Togo’s last long-distance feat. He died in 1929, and his preserved body is on view at the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race Headquarters in Wasilla, Alaska. After the limelight faded, Balto lived out his final days at the Cleveland Zoo, and his body is on display at the Cleveland Natural History Museum. Since 1973, the memory of the serum run has lived on in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, which is held each March and is run on some of the same trails traveled by Balto, Togo and dozens of other sled dogs in a furious race against time nearly 95 years ago.

Thus the Mercy race is over and has taken its place in history, end of story. But, is it really the end of the story? Not by a longshot. The question of who was the real canine Hero? That answer is still unclear and questionable in the minds of those familiar with the Serum Run race. Almost all research material available leans heavily toward the dog known as Togo as the most important Husky in the race, even considering that Balto actually delivered the serum and was given the accolades from the victory. If you rummage around you will still get arguments and debates in response to this simple question.

Steven Spielberg made an animated movie in 1995 about the life of Balto. For some unknown reason he did not include musher Gunnar Kaasen in the movie. The film was well received by children and young adults.

During an interview with Janice, Kaasen’s Great Niece, she announced that Kaasen said to her that, “I wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for Balto.” This comment speaks volumes for Kaasen’s support of Balto.

Several books were written after the race with each trying to identify the victor. Some of the titles were, A True Story of the Far North and The Book Bird. Probably the best written and most acclaimed was The Cruelest Miles, written by two cousins named Gay and Laney Salisbury. There were comments that this was the best dog story ever written. The cousins sided with Balto as the Hero of the race, making him the most famous dog of the ages as reported on the three and a half million radio sets and their listeners in America.

At the same time other transactions and contracts were being negotiated as movie deals and other entities were conceived. If a buck could be made, everyone wanted in on the action. Leonhard Seppala became the subject of a movie filmed in 2019, by the Walt Disney studios. The film entitled “Togo” featuring William Dafoe as Leonhard Seppala was well rated and received.

There were at least seventeen books and movies made that proclaimed either Togo or Balto as the hero and champion of the Great Serum run. The controversy continues.

Seppala and his team of Huskies led by TOGO

Ed Rohn, the man who had been sleeping at Port Safety when Gunnar Kaasen passed him by at 3:00 a.m. delivered the package containing 1.1 million units of serum February 15, 1925. Once again the teams braved howling winds and blizzard conditions to get the serum to Nome. The quarantine was lifted Saturday, February 21, 1925, a month after diphtheria killed little Billy Barnett and nearly three weeks after the first doses of serum arrived in Gunnar Kaasen’s sled.

Togo and the musher who drove his team, Leonhard Seppala, are names known mostly to hardcore followers of the Alaskan races. Seppala made the decision to cross frozen Norton Sound with the serum despite the danger of breaking pack ice that might have cost the team and the children of Nome their lives. Had he not crossed the frozen expanse of sea, though, more children would have died because of the delay in getting the serum to them.

Dr. Welch later said that there were 70 confirmed cases of diphtheria in and around Nome that winter. Although the official death toll was five, Dr. Welch believed that the actual number was much higher since the Eskimo population may have buried children without reporting the illness.

Without that serum run by 20 men and their hardy dogs, the death toll would have been much higher. And although the initial delivery of 300,000 units of diphtheria antitoxin serum is the one that made the headlines, without the same heroic effort made two weeks later by many of the same men and dogs, the casualties of the epidemic would have been much worse.

Seppala was already widely regarded as the territory’s best musher, and his part of the serum run was certainly the hardest of any of the mushers who participated. Togo worked so hard on the Serum Run he injured himself and never raced again.

During the miles the dogs and men ran from Nenana to Nome, many Americans were transfixed by the story as it unfolded almost in real time in their homes via the marvelous invention called “radio.” The story gripped the imagination of the entire nation, and once the children of Nome were saved the team 22 led by Balto began touring the country. The dogs ended up a permanent attraction in one of the many vaudeville shows that were so popular at the time.

The animals were apparently mistreated and not well cared for. George Kimball of Cleveland, Ohio, saw the team in Los Angeles and was appalled at their condition. With the help of Cleveland’s schoolchildren, $2,000.00 was raised and Balto and the rest of the team were purchased from the vaudeville show. The dogs lived in Cleveland for the rest of their lives. After Balto’s death in 1933 he was stuffed, mounted, and placed on display at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, where he is still a very popular attraction.

Author’s Conclusion

Last year when this story was begun your Author searched numerous pages of data related to the question; what dog actually won the race and was claimed the victor? After spending over a year investigating the subject of Balto vs Togo I have finally reached my conclusion.

My original approach was too narrow minded and confining. I was looking for the needle in the haystack rather than looking at the complete stack of hay. Once I cleared my cluttered mind of Balto and Togo, the choice became easy.

During my evaluation of the data and research material I became overwhelmed with the information available about each dog and his musher. And the bottom line is that the data was merely words and opinions, and as we know everybody has an opinion.

The Serum Run race was called a race when in fact it wasn’t a race. No team was in competition with any other team. When you stand back and look at the big picture you see children dying, men and sled dogs giving their energy and lives to help solve the crisis. It’s not just about Balto and Togo or who came in first.

Its people like Doctor Welch, Laura his wife, the nurses, all the mushers including the Eskimo’s and natives and whites working together. Yes it’s a team effort but not just sled dogs and mushers. It’s a team made up of little people that are worried about their town and its people, including the natives.

Togo and Balto will just have to take a back seat in my version of the Serum Run. It matters not which dog came in first, it’s about the Serum arriving and solving Nome’s diphtheria crisis.

And so the efforts of Doctor Welch, his wife Laura, the three nurses, the twenty or more mushers and their 150 trained sled dogs and the many natives unknowingly risk their lives, to save the children and ultimately the town of Nome.

In my judgement every one participating in the run, including Balto and Togo all qualify as Heroes in my book.

End