On 2 February 1925, BALTO, along with Norwegian musher Gunnar Kaasen, arrived in Nome, Alaska, saving the residents from a deadly diphtheria epidemic that was sweeping the area. On 22 January, Curtis Welch, the only doctor in Nome, sent a radio-telegram to the authorities in Anchorage in January, notifying them of the outbreak of diphtheria and requesting the antitoxin serum. By then, the port of Nome was already frozen in and the only airplane in Alaska was not operable due to the weather conditions. The decision was made to transport the serum from Alaska to Nenana by train, and then over the remaining 674 miles (1,085 km) by dog sled. On 27 January, musher Wild Bill Shannon and his dog team, led by Blackie, departed on the first leg of the relay. More than 20 other mushers, with 150 dogs, followed; as one team tired, another would take the lead. The longest portion of the relay, 261 miles (420 km) was led by musher Leonhard Seppala and his dog team, led by Togo. Five and half days after leaving Anchorage, BALTO and Kaasen arrived in Nome. During the race, the mushers and dog teams had faced blizzard conditions, deep snow drifts, gale-force winds, and temperatures as low as -62F (-52C). Today, the run is commemorated with the annual Iditarod Trail Race. BALTO became the most famous dog in America, and just ten months after the race, a statue to him was erected in New York Citys Central Park. BALTO himself was present for the unveiling. The plaque on the statue bears the following inscription: 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. When BALTO died in 1933, at the age of 14, his remains were mounted by a taxidermist and donated to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Since then, the Alaska Legislature has passed a Bring Back Balto resolution; the Cleveland Museum has declined to return BALTO, although they did loan him for a few months in 1998 to the Anchorage Museum of History and Art.
Posted on: Sun, 02 Feb 2014 11:23:20 +0000
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