Balto and the Great Race (2 page)

In January 1925, winter settled over Alaska like an iron blanket. There were snowdrifts, high winds, and blizzards. Temperatures often dropped as low as thirty or forty degrees below zero.

Once winter came, the people of Nome were totally cut off from the outside world. But that January of 1925, a crisis came to the small, isolated city, and even the toughest citizens knew they needed help—winter or not.

The crisis was a diphtheria epidemic. An
epidemic
is the very quick spread of a disease to a large number of people. Epidemics can be very difficult to stop, even under good conditions. And the conditions in Nome were far from good.

Diphtheria, which often struck children in the past, begins with a flu-like fever and a sore throat. The disease quickly progresses to a very serious stage and is often deadly. Today children are given a simple injection to prevent them from catching the disease, but in 1925 the only cure was an
antitoxin serum
.

In Nome, there was just enough serum to treat a few infected people. Without it, many people would die.

Dr. Curtis Welch was the sole doctor in all of Nome. He knew he had to get help!

There were no telephones in Nome, so Dr. Welch sent out an urgent plea for help by telegraph. Soon, all of America was waiting and listening for word of the sick and snowbound Alaskans.

A large supply of the antitoxin serum was found on the other side of Alaska in a
city called Anchorage. The medicine was transported by train to the town of Nenana. That was as far north and west as the railroad tracks went.

Nenana was still quite a ways from Nome—650 miles! With winter at its worst, there were no passable roads out of Nenana. And the two local airplanes, which made summer flights, were unusable. As Dr. Welch tried frantically to help his patients, the situation grew worse and worse.

How could the serum get to Nome in time?

The workers of the Northern Commercial Company—the mining company that used dog teams for its mail system—had an idea. They thought that their mail system was the answer to the problem of transporting the serum.

The Northern Commercial mail system worked like this: the mail traveled a variety of paths and was transferred from dogsled to dogsled until it reached its destination. The sleds ran frequently, and the paths were well known to the dogs and mushers alike. Even in January’s severe weather conditions, an experienced musher and team could travel the mail routes.

The biggest problem was timing. A package dropped off at the train station in Nenana usually took about a month to arrive in Nome by dogsled.

Many people in Nome were already infected with diphtheria, and more were coming down with it every day. Most of the sick people were children. A month was simply too long for them to wait. The medicine had to reach them much more quickly.

The Northern Commercial Company did not waste a minute.

All over Alaska, the very best mushers and those with the strongest and fastest dogs volunteered. The idea was to set up a giant relay course across the state. If enough drivers and dogs were ready and waiting, the precious cargo could travel from one sled to the next without stopping for more than a moment!

Almost every town had a musher who wanted to join the relay. For a driver and team to run their best, each team could cover only a short distance. A tired and overworked team would slow everything down—or worse, become lost. It was decided that the serum would be passed from team to team as often as possible.

The landscape of Alaska provided a natural road. Nenana was connected to the
western coast of Alaska by two rivers; the Tanana and the Yukon. The first teams would follow these rivers, sledding directly on the ice whenever possible.

Detailed instructions were sent by telegraph to all the participating mushers. Each group of men and dogs was told where and when to be waiting. When the sledding team carrying the serum arrived at a transfer point, the crate of antitoxin would be moved to the new sled in mere minutes. The fresh team and musher would then speed toward the next transfer point.

Failure was unthinkable—dozens of lives were at stake!

CHAPTER THREE
Nome: Gathering the Teams

In Nome, musher Gunnar Kaasen was listening when the call for help went out. He had an experienced, powerful team, and he trusted them with his life.

He knew that Leonhard Seppala was joining the relay teams. Seppala had more reasons than most for joining in the race against time. Years before, his own daughter had caught diphtheria. Seppala had watched his little girl fight the raging fever and win. He knew what the parents in
Nome were going through. He had seen diphtheria beaten, and he was determined to see it beaten again.

Seppala had already left Nome; heading east with the best of his dogs. He had left behind many of his other dogs, including a brownish black Siberian husky named Balto.

Balto was a powerfully built, strong animal. He was very good at pulling loads on the sled. But Balto wasn’t known for his great speed. In racing, Seppala relied on his fastest huskies, the ones that consistently outran all other dogs. It was these he chose to make up his team.

Gunnar Kaasen, on the other hand, thought much more highly of Balto. He had complete faith in the dog’s instincts and trusted him with his life. And now there were more lives on the line.

Kaasen knew he could use Balto in his team while Seppala was away But Balto and Kaasen couldn’t help by staying in Nome. To help relay the serum, they would have to head east, where they were needed. The musher quickly volunteered to help.

Word came back almost immediately. Kaasen, Balto, and the team would be expected in Bluff, a small mining town more than sixty miles east of Nome.

Rumor had it that the first dog teams had already left Nenana and were making good time, but it was impossible to know for certain where they were. Once Balto’s team reached Bluff, they would be on constant alert, as the team carrying the serum would arrive there with no warning. Balto’s team would have to begin their dash to Nome with only minutes to prepare!

Gunnar Kaasen harnessed Balto and his team to the sled as swiftly as possible. He did not put Balto in the lead position.

When a musher found a good lead dog, he worked with him as much as possible.
Kaasen knew Balto was a good dog and could pull as hard as any, but he didn’t think of him as a lead dog. For the lead position, Kaasen chose a dog who had led the team many times before.

There are a number of qualities a dog must have to guide a sled and a team of dogs. A lead dog must know how to respond to commands and keep the team moving. He must be able to lead the team between trees and rocks without pulling the sled into them. He must be able to avoid sudden obstacles in the trail that the musher, on the back of the sled, cannot see.

He must be able to assert himself over the other dogs in the team, so that he is followed without question. He must be able to find and stay on the trail, no matter how bad the weather. And most important
of all, a lead dog must have intuition—a natural inner knowledge of what to do. If Balto had all these skills and qualities, no one knew it—yet.

Kaasen carried a change of clothes and several lanterns, along with food for himself and the dogs. He had made the trip to Bluff many times. However, he had never made the trip with such a sense of urgency.

The streets of Nome were unusually quiet. Straining in their harnesses, eager to be on their way, the dogs seemed to understand that this was a special trip.

Balto knew what was expected of him. In the past, Kaasen had sometimes noticed Balto acting with wisdom and understanding. But Balto had never seemed more aware of what was expected of him than on this day. It was as if he knew this race
would be the most important one of his life.

As Balto and the team were preparing to leave, a special health board was appointed to help deal with the growing crisis. So far, four people had died. Three of them were children. The mayor had been told that the antitoxin serum would probably reach Nome in two weeks.

Dr. Welch was not hopeful when he heard the news. Diphtheria was easy to catch. The doctor guessed that as many as eighty people might already have been exposed to it. The children who had been exposed were the ones most in danger. He could hardly bear to think what might happen to those eighty people in the two weeks they had to wait for the antitoxin.

Mushers with years of experience knew that the distance from Nenana to
Nome had been covered in less than two weeks in good weather. The record time was nine days. But these seasoned dog racers also knew the risks the relay teams were facing.

Winter had been very bad so far. It would probably get worse—colder, snowier, and icier.

Some of the dogs on the teams might even die from the effort if their mushers really pushed them. But if the mushers
didn’t
push their dogs hard enough, it might be too late by the time they reached Nome.

The issue was argued back and forth as Dr. Welch worked frantically to buy his patients some time.

In the growing darkness, Kaasen turned Balto and the team toward Bluff. Setting
paw after paw firmly into the snow, his muzzle high and his tail curled tightly with determination Balto trotted into the night.

CHAPTER FOUR
Bluff, Alaska

The tiny town of Bluff wasn’t much more than a few buildings near Daniel’s Creek, but it was bustling with activity when Balto and the team pulled in.

Men had flocked to Bluff because black sand had been found surrounding Daniel’s Creek, and people thought black sand was a sign that gold was there. But on the day Balto arrived, no one was thinking about gold. Every hope was focused on the
antitoxin serum, packed in glass vials, that was making its way westward.