Alaska’s Anchorage (AP) Nome, an Alaskan Gold Rush town, had a dismal winter. Cut off by the frozen sea and relentless blizzards, it was hundreds of miles from anyone. It was also besieged by a dangerous disease called the strangling angel because of the way it smothered youngsters.
One hundred years later, Nome is honoring its heroes—the mushers and sled dogs that raced for almost five days through blinding whiteouts, gale-force winds, hypothermia, and frostbite in order to deliver life-saving serum and rescue the community from diphtheria.
The Nome Kennel Club is hosting a number of events to commemorate the centennial of the Great Race of Mercy in 1925, including talks, a dog food drive, and a reenactment of the relay’s last leg.
Remembering the mushers and dogs for heroic effort
Diana Haecker, a board member of the kennel club and co-owner of the Nome Nugget, Alaska’s oldest newspaper, stated, “We wanted to honor the mushers and their dogs who have been at the heart of this heroic effort and… highlight mushing as a still-viable thing for the state of Alaska.” There is a lot of nonsense surrounding celebrations like this.
She claimed that people simply stopped doing whatever they were doing. Despite the extremely cold and difficult trail conditions, these mushers prepared their teams and set out.
Other towns are commemorating the occasion as well, including as Cleveland, Ohio, where the most well-known participant in the serum run, a husky mix named Balto, is stuffed and on exhibit at a museum, and the municipality of Nenana, where the relay started.
The journey is being recreated by Jonathan Hayes, a native of Maine who has been attempting to maintain the genetic line of sled dogs that renowned musher Leonhard Seppala drives on the run. With sixteen Seppala Siberian sled dogs, registered offspring of Seppala’s team, Hayes departed Nenana on Monday.
The historic trek to neutralize the diphtheria epidemic in Nome
Once a major cause of death for children, diphtheria is an airborne illness that results in the formation of a thick, suffocating film at the back of the throat. It is currently extremely uncommon in the United States; the antitoxin used to treat it was created in 1890, and a vaccination was created in 1923.
About 1,400 people lived in Nome, the largest community in western Alaska, a century ago. Without any antitoxin doses, its last supply ship had arrived the previous fall, before the Bering Sea froze. Curtis Welch, the local doctor, had those, but he didn’t care if they were out of date. In his eighteen years of practicing in the area, he had not observed a case of diphtheria.
That changed in a matter of months. Welch begged the U.S. Public Health Service to send serum in a cable, saying, “A diphtheria epidemic is almost inevitable here.”
On January 20, 1925, a 3-year-old child died first, and a 7-year-old daughter died the following day. Over 20 cases had been confirmed before the end of the month. A quarantine was imposed on the city.
Antitoxin doses were available in West Coast hospitals, but getting them to Seattle and then onto a ship bound for Seward, an ice-free port south of Anchorage, would take time. Meanwhile, a hospital in Anchorage found enough for thirty people.
Nome was still to be reached. Since they were deemed unsuitable for the weather, aircraft with open-air cockpits were excluded. Nome was not accessible by road or rail.
Rather, officials used mail paths and the frozen Yukon River to transport the serum by rail to Nenana in interior Alaska, which is about 675 miles (1,086 kilometers) from Nome.
The nation watched with fascination as 20 mushers, many of them were Alaska Natives, with more than 150 dogs transported the serum to Nome thanks to Alaska’s new telegraph links and the development of radio. They faced life-threatening temperatures that occasionally dropped to minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 51 degrees Celsius), heavy snow, and whiteouts so bad they couldn’t see the dogs ahead.
Glass vials wrapped in quilted quilts were used to deliver the antitoxin. Not one vial cracked.
A Norwegian settler named Seppala set out from Nome to meet the supplies close to the halfway point and start the return trip. Over 250 miles (320 kilometers) were covered by his team, guided by his dog Togo, including a perilous section over the icy Norton Sound.
The serum arrived at its destination on February 2, 1925, approximately five and a half days later. The San Francisco Chronicle’s main page headline read, “Dogs defeat blizzard in battle to save stricken Nome.”
According to the official record, there were 29 illnesses and five deaths. Because Alaska Natives were not properly tracked, the death toll was probably greater.
Balto gains fame as unlikely dog to bring serum to Nome
When his assistant, Gunnar Kaasen, led the dog team under Balto into Nome, Seppala and Togo were left out of the spotlight. Another dog owned by Seppala was Balto, but he was only employed to transport freight because he was judged to be too slow to compete.
In addition to being immortalized in films, Balto is honored with monuments in Central Park in New York and Anchorage that pay homage to all sled dogs. Legendary actress Mary Pickford wrapped a garland around his neck and gave him a bone-shaped key to the city of Los Angeles.
However, he and a number of his teammates were ultimately auctioned and housed in filthy conditions in a dime museum in Los Angeles. An Ohio businessman discovered their predicament and led a campaign to obtain funds to transport them to Cleveland. Balto was mounted and shown in the Cleveland Museum of Natural History following his death in 1933.
Iditarod pays homage to the serum run
The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, which is based on the Iditarod Trail, a supply route from Seward to Nome, rather than the serum run, is currently the most well-known mushing competition in the world. According to race spokesperson Shannon Noonan, the Iditarod organizers are commemorating the centennial of the serum run by selling replicas of the medallions each runner received a century ago and publishing a series of essays on their website. Iditarod begins this year on March 1.
The Iditarod has developed into a celebration of that history and Alaska’s spirit of pioneering, whereas the Serum Run illustrated the vital role sled dogs played in the survival and communication of isolated Alaskan settlements, according to Noonan.
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