Balto and the Great Race

Alaska and Hawaii were granted United States statehood in 1959. Before then, Alaska was an American colony that was purchased from Russia in 1867. As a result, Alaska carries a great deal of Russian culture and heritage with it, including the prominence of Siberian huskies as a method of transportation against the cold and dangerous terrain. Huskies as a breed can be “traced back over two thousand years to Siberia, which lies across the Bering Sea from Alaska” (7), and thus the breed has a long history of loyalty, devotion, and friendship with humans. Alaska is one of America’s largest states but is sparsely populated, making transportation and communication difficult, and Nome is one of the most isolated places on earth. Despite this, in 1925, “there were many opportunities for a strong canine with powerful legs and a healthy set of lungs” (5). Siberian huskies were known to be passionate, loyal workers whose intuition seemed to have evolved to be perfectly in tune with the needs of humans. Although all dogs share a Bond with Humans, huskies are especially devoted. One of the story’s primary musher figures, Seppala, was well aware of this and insisted on only using huskies on his sled teams. While dog sledding is still an active form of transportation today, it is primarily used as a form of entertainment and way to honor past dog mushers, such as through the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. The Race started in 1973 and racers travel the same route as the mushers of the Serum Run of 1925. There is also a Junior Race for youth with the same passion for the historical resolve and strength of dogs and dog mushers.

The Serum Run of 1925 was a response to a health crisis in the western Alaskan city of Nome. Nome was and continues to be severely isolated from the rest of the world, and in 1925, not a single road led into it. While planes occasionally flew through, it was up to the dog mushers of Alaska to save the children of Nome. They faced challenges that people today would not, including relying on telegraph for communication, facing the weather with little protection, and the complete lack of a diphtheria vaccine. Elizabeth Cody Kimmel makes note of the potential unreliability of aspects of her narrative, as she at times struggled to find solid information on specific dates, locations, and other information regarding the Serum Run. This was largely a symptom of the times, as sparse communication meant that information was often delayed or confused along the way. What she did piece together is based in fact and the major events of the story were confirmed. The dogs of the Serum Run were immortalized through Balto in the form of both a statue in New York City and a stuffed mount in the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. In the back of the book, Kimmel includes photographs of Balto as he poses for his statue, and Balto along with Kaasen as they sit at the unveiling weeks later.