Balto and the Great Race (4 page)

They were crossing the ice of Norton Sound.

Seppala had not made the decision to cross the sound lightly. He was well aware of the risk he was taking. But he had
labored for years to develop a flawless working relationship with his dogs. He knew that the dogs understood the ice could be dangerous.

Togo—the lead dog, who had trained with Balto—had keen eyesight. His intuition was even keener. Seppala knew Togo would do his best to keep them off unstable ice.

He also knew that Togo liked to run in a perfectly straight line. This was an unusual quality, and Seppala was grateful for it. It meant that he could be certain that Togo was heading directly for the opposite shore. Togo would not go off course unless he had to.

Seppala and his team had almost crossed Norton Sound when the dogs stopped in their tracks. Seppala did not urge them on. He watched them to figure
out why they had halted.

Togo had lifted his nose high into the air. His ears were pricked up. He was not behaving as if they were on unstable ice. Trusting Togo’s instincts, Seppala let him pull the sled in the direction he wanted.

Soon, Seppala himself could see what Togo had discovered. Heading toward them over the ice was a team of dogs pulling a sled. On the back of the sled was a wooden crate!

Seppala had not expected to meet up with the relay team so far west. The musher driving the sled was named Henry Ivanoff. As the two men quickly moved the crate to Seppala’s sled, Ivanoff filled Seppala in on what had happened so far.

It had taken seventeen relay teams to bring the serum to this point. The teams had made much better time than they had
hoped. At his last checkpoint, Ivanoff had learned that a musher named Charlie Olson was waiting for Seppala in the town of Golovin.

Then Ivanoff passed on the latest news from Nome, including the number of people Dr. Welch feared were infected. He also told Seppala that he must keep the precious serum from freezing.

Filled with a new sense of urgency, Seppala turned his sled back in the direction of Nome. Again, he chose the shorter but more hazardous path—across the ice—to save time.

Togo pushed forward with all his strength.

Moments later, without warning, the dogs plunged through the ice!

CHAPTER EIGHT
Bluff, Norton Sound, and Golovin

In Bluff, Balto felt the change in the weather long before any humans. He knew a storm when he smelled one. He paced back and forth, his nose to the wind.

Kaasen thought Balto’s actions came from tension and impatience, which were what Kaasen himself was feeling. He had not slept in two days. The wait was terrible.

Finally news came.

Henry Ivanoff reported a successful
transfer to Seppala on the ice of Norton Sound. Ivanoff said that Seppala had taken off immediately and was making good time toward the town of Golovin. There, Charlie Olson and his team were waiting. High winds and blowing snow had been reported, but Olson’s run to Bluff would be only thirty miles.

At last, action was close at hand!

Kaasen rechecked the sled and readied the harnesses. Balto understood his musher’s actions. He leaped to his feet and stretched his muscles. They would be leaving soon!

Seppala spent several agonizing minutes on his stomach on the shattered ice with the harness lines in his hands.

He wound his feet around the sled runners to anchor himself. Then he began
to get the dogs out of the water and onto firm ice.

Just one panicking dog could cause both Seppala and the sled to fall into the water. But each dog kept his head. Each dog remained calm, trusting in his musher’s ability to pull him out of the freezing water. Not for the first time, Seppala was proud of his Siberian huskies.

Pulling the last shivering, wet dog from the water, Seppala looked forward to telling his friends at the Nome Kennel Club how his Siberians had remained calm in the face of disaster.

Seppala took a few minutes to rub all of the dogs’ feet before going on. He knew his animals would be no worse for their icy dip as long as he took care of their paws. The dogs were protected by multiple layers of fur covering a thick layer of fat. This
fur and fat made a tight seal against the frigid water and cold air.

If Seppala had fallen into the water, he would already have been suffering from severe frostbite—if the cold water itself hadn’t killed him.

Seppala and his team had lost valuable time. So they continued toward the town of Golovin at a brisk pace.

They reached Golovin, and the transfer of the antitoxin to the next team was made quickly Seppala took only a moment to warm the crate of serum by the fire. He explained to Charlie Olson that the antitoxin must not be allowed to freeze.

Olson was happy to be on his way. Golovin had been a stark reminder of what he was racing for. In 1918, an epidemic of influenza had hit the little town.
Seven years later, there were many people who had lost loved ones to the disease.

Olson did not want to see the same thing happen in Nome.

CHAPTER NINE
Bluff, Solomon, and Port Safety

Bluff was strangely silent.

It was late in the evening, and both men and dogs had eaten their fill at dinner. Once again, all of Bluff’s lights were left on in the hopes that Charlie Olson’s team might soon arrive.

Unknown to the people there, the weather near Nome had gotten bad. Some of the telegraph lines were down. In Bluff, it was very windy, but the conditions did not seem to be hazardous.

Balto’s loud barking broke the silence.

Gunnar Kaasen heard it and rushed outside. Balto and the rest of the team were on their feet, sniffing the air. Their ears were straight and high. There could be no mistake—Olson’s team must be closing in.

Sure enough, minutes later, Olson’s panting dogs trotted into Bluff. Within minutes, they were surrounded by people.

Olson gave Kaasen what little information he had as Kaasen slipped his dogs into their harnesses. According to plan, Kaasen was to drive through Solomon, where there was a working telegraph, so he could get the latest news. He would then head to Port Safety, where the final musher would be waiting.

The serum was warmed and the men worked quickly, tying the crate onto
Kaasen’s sled. The race hadn’t been won yet. Nome was barely sixty miles away but some difficult land lay in between.

The men gave Kaasen their good wishes, and Olson reminded him to keep the serum warm.

Balto leaned forward in his harness, straining to be on his way. He leaned, without being told, in the direction of
Nome. He remembered what they had left behind in that town and why they needed to return.

It was exactly ten o’clock at night. The temperature was dropping. With Gunnar Kaasen bringing up the rear, the team set out into the blackness, unaware of a howling blizzard that raged only miles ahead.

They were on the trail at last!

As the lead dog pulled forward, Gunnar Kaasen’s eyes slowly became used to the darkness. The dogs set a quick pace after two days of waiting, and they warmed to the exercise. Gripping the handlebars of the sled as it skated over the path, Kaasen imagined what the landscape looked like in daylight. The relay was going well, but there was no room for mistakes. He wanted to be prepared for anything.

The trail to Port Safety followed the coastline, sometimes snaking out over the sea ice. This was the Seward Peninsula—the western extension of Alaska on which Nome sits. This area of Alaska is almost completely bare of trees. The landscape is harsh, rocky and totally exposed to the elements.

Sledding at the very edge of the coast put Balto and the team in the teeth of the vicious winds sweeping in from the ocean. Kaasen had heard stories of powerful wind currents lifting entire teams of dogs off the ground. And there were other dangers, too. Kaasen had to be prepared, at any moment, to be attacked by deadly moose or other wildlife.

In the town of Solomon, the telegraph operator put a message aside for Kaasen’s
arrival. The message was from the Nome Board of Health, and it confirmed that a violent blizzard was raging between Solomon and Nome. The message told Kaasen and his team to stay in Solomon until the storm passed.

A message was also sent to musher Ed Rohn, who was waiting with his team at Port Safety to take over from Kaasen. Rohn was ready to take the serum the short distance remaining to Nome. But since he believed the telegraphed message meant that Balto and the team would not arrive until morning, Rohn turned out the lights and slept.

CHAPTER TEN
On the Trail

As Kaasen and his team headed west to Solomon, the wind whipped the snow into their faces. It was hard to tell where the ground began and left off. The blowing snow painted everything white. Trail, sea, and sky looked identical.

What little visibility Kaasen had had was gone. Between the darkness of night and the sheets of snow, he became disoriented. He could not see the trail at all. He wasn’t sure in which direction Solomon
lay. Then, to Kaasen’s surprise and dismay his lead dog stopped and refused to go on.

Nothing the musher did could get the dog to move forward. Reluctantly, Kaasen
changed the dog’s position and put a new animal in the lead.