Okay, so something you may not know about me is I like to read Wikipedia a lot, specifically
I get like cravings, is that the right word, to research specific topics.
I have mentioned that I have ADHD before and I think it's sort of related to that.
I get kind of like hyper focused on one specific thing and I need to know everything about
it and I need to learn as much as possible in a very short period of time and nothing's
going to stop me.
So today at work, I wanted to learn more about Balto.
And if you're a 90s kid like me, you might remember that animated movie about Balto where
it's Balto the dog delivers medicine to kids in Alaska is basically the premise of it.
Now I didn't watch that yet in research, but I have watched exactly one and a half documentaries
and read about four different Wikipedia pages, so I am ready to talk about this.
So also, if you want to know how I got kind of the craving to research about this, I was
doing my normal thing at like the lull of today at work.
I was looking in the news and I was just like, what's interesting going on in the world today?
And that CEO of that, I don't think it's Thanos because that's the guy from the Infinity Wars
is Thanos, right?
But it's like Theranos, remember that that CEO, she wears the black turtlenecks.
She had that really like low voice.
But the article was saying that she had a dog and was claiming that it was a wolf.
So I read the article and it was just she had a husky and like all huskies, they have
a bit of wolf in them and she was like, it's a wolf, and then I was like, what about Balto?
So and then I got on Wikipedia and I typed in Balto and then I was like, oh, there's
so much more to this story than I ever knew.
So what I'm going to be talking about specifically is the 1925 serum run to gnome.
So in 1925, there was this outbreak, I don't really want to call it outbreak, but there
was diphtheria that was going around this town in gnome in Alaska.
And why this was kind of an issue is because it was in January.
And in January, they are cut off from the rest of the world pretty much.
They're right by the what's it called?
It's one of the sounds.
The Norton sound, they're right by the Norton sound, and they're just cut off from the world
when it's really cold and everything freezes.
And pretty much the only method of information is the mail.
And the mail is carried by, I read so much on this topic, but I can't remember the name.
They're like the mushers of the dog, dog sled, dog sleds.
The mail is carried by dog sleds across this route.
It's called the Editarat National Historic Trail.
I don't know.
No, that's not it.
It's just a route.
It's just the route of the mail and it takes 30 days to get mail.
So this town, also important information about this town, it's less than 2000 citizens there.
And there's actually only one doctor and four nurses for the entire town and the towns around
it.
They're all native, native Alaskans.
Also they're only just one doctor, just that.
So this doctor starts seeing these cases of what he thinks are tonsillitis, I believe
it is.
And he kind of keeps it, just keeps believing it's tonsillitis for a little while, a couple
days, because he doesn't really want to believe it's diphtheria, because that is pretty, uh,
mortal.
What's it called?
When you die.
Yeah, I'm just going mortal.
It is pretty deadly.
Nearly 100% of people who don't get treatment for diphtheria die of it.
So he treated the children for what he thought was tonsillitis.
And diphtheria is extremely contagious.
So this town went on without being quarantined with these kids having diphtheria.
He's saying, no, it's tonsillitis and four children died.
He had not been able to autopsy them, but at this point he's kind of gets really concerned
that it's diphtheria.
And he, I think he tells his wife, and then there, he goes out to the, uh, a native Alaskan
person who is also sick and he's like, fuck, it's diphtheria.
So he writes a letter, um, well, not really a letter.
It's a telegram.
He writes a telegram to the public health service saying that, Hey, we need help.
So here is the telegram.
An epidemic of diphtheria is almost inevitable here.
Stop.
I am in urgent need of 1 million units of diphtheria anti-toxin.
Stop.
Mail is only form of transportation.
Stop.
I have made application to commissioner of health of the territories for anti-toxin already.
Stop.
There are about 3000 white natives in the district.
So that was the telegram that he sent.
And he's asking for 1 million units of this diphtheria anti-toxin, which is the treatment
for diphtheria.
This anti-toxin, it's actually developed from horse's blood, which I, I had no idea.
One of the documentaries said that, but he actually had, uh, a couple.
Yeah.
Treatments worth amount of this diphtheria anti-toxin, but it was expired by about four
years and he got a little desperate because obviously, um, and he actually tried to administer
some of the expired anti-toxin, uh, he thought it might still have an effect.
Uh, the first girl he administered it to actually died a few hours later, but then, um, later
he was able to administer it to some people that actually did get better, it seemed.
There was a family that there was the mother, the son, and a daughter who were all sick.
And originally the daughter had gotten sick and she was administered 3000, um, units of
the anti-toxin.
And then, um, the doctor actually wanted to administer the mother with what he had remaining
of this expired anti-toxin, but she instead decided to wait for the shipment because at
this point they had been told that they would be getting more of the serum.
Um, and she asked the doctor to instead give it to her son.
I don't know what happened to that family.
I super hope that they all survived and it was all great.
Um, but in the documentary I watched, they were interviewing the daughter and she never
said if her mother survived or if her, uh, brother survived, so I'm like, uh, um, okay.
So that's setting up the story, um, what's going on in this town of Nome in Alaska.
Okay, so like I said, pretty much these dog sleds were the only way to get anything to
this place during January.
Um, there was actually planes that were invented at this time.
They were completely open, uh, cabin planes and they actually had to, sorry, my throat.
All right, that's better.
So the pilots of these planes actually had to be all bundled up with all the snow gear
because it's so fucking cold and they're going fast in the plane and they're high in the
plane, it's freezing.
So they had to be so bundled up that it was pretty much impossible to operate these planes
and there were actually crash landings all the time with these planes and the actual
distance that they had to get this antitoxin to travel was 674 miles, um, and planes kind
of only went half that distance, so it was like, um, and actually this, the serum that
was coming was only 30, no, 300,000 units, uh, instead of the million he had originally
asked for the, the, there was a million units that were being sent from Seattle via ship
that were coming, um, I believe they were coming to Anchorage maybe.
And then they were going to also go by, um, a train to where, to Nina, yeah.
So, um, the, the commission gets his messages telegrammed, they're like, fuck, okay, we
got to get, got to get these units to Nome before it becomes an epidemic and it spreads
to the outlying towns, towns.
So they have a million units, it's in Seattle, they're going to send it on a ship and it's
going to get to Anchorage January 31st.
So that's our best plan.
But then in Anchorage, some doctor finds 300,000 units just lying around, I guess.
And he finds this, I believe on the 25th of January.
So they send those up to Nina, Nina, it's not Nina, but it's Nina on the railroad.
Um, that's just north and it's on, I think it might be on the Yukon River.
Yeah, it's on one of the legs of the Yukon River, I think.
And from this train depot, as far north as they can get with the train, they have to
have a relay of 20 different dock slides to bring it to Nome.
Now I've told you about this route.
This is a 30 day route that is a mail carrier, mail carrier route.
They want to do it in six days.
So normally it takes one person 30 days, but they're going to have 20 people do it in six
days.
So it's going to be night and day, they are going to be riding this serum to Nome.
An interesting thing about this serum is it can't freeze, not that it like physically
can't freeze.
It's just, it wouldn't be useful for it to freeze.
It would be bad, more wine.
So it was all packaged in these glass vials and then it was wrapped up in quilts.
So it would be nice and insulated for the travels and it was altogether about 20 pounds
of a package.
So we get it to Ninan, Ninana, I'm so sorry, I think it's Nin, excuse me while I breathe
into mic, Ninana, Ninana, let's call it Ninana.
So this, oh God, my clicker, I'm on the Wikipedia page just so I don't forget anything.
So this relay starts at Ninana and it starts with Wild Bill Shannon.
So this guy, Bill Shannon, he starts the relay off on January 22nd at 11pm and he only has
to go, look at me, I'm an asshole.
He has to go 52 miles or 84 kilometers to get to the next relay person.
Now he was called Wild Bill Shannon because he was a bit of an alcoholic.
And it's actually really sad.
He started with, I believe, how many dogs did he start with?
Eleven dogs.
Eleven dogs, Alaskan Mellemutes, which are larger than Huskies, I believe.
And the temperatures that he went through ranged from negative 40 to negative 62 degrees
Fahrenheit.
And so he started at 11 and then he on his sled went until 3am where he arrived in a
roadhouse and at this roadhouse he rested for four hours before setting off again to
the next stop.
But during the time between the beginning to the roadhouse, he actually lost three dogs,
Cub, Jack, and Jet.
These dogs ended up dying later from the lung injuries because the air being so cold can
actually scald, is called, their lungs.
So these poor dogs died and he took, he actually had to take lead to make it to the roadhouse.
His lead dog had died so he strapped himself in and he ran with the dogs to make it.
He also suffered from phasal frostbite, which I guess is to be expected at 62 degrees below
Fahrenheit.
Okay.
So then it's Dan Green.
Dan Green has to go 31 miles or 50 kilometers and he goes from Tolovanna to Manly Hot Springs
and temperatures actually weren't to negative 30.
Ugh, but it was 20 miles an hour wind.
Now I believe to actually get his hands to release from the sled because he had his hands
on the sled.
They had to pour hot water on his hands to get them to release from the sled at the end
of this at Manly Hot Springs.
I believe that was the story I read.
I read that somewhere.
I can't find it now, but I believe it was him.
Then it was Johnny Folder and he ran from the hot springs to Fish Lake.
He had to go 28 miles or 45 kilometers and he made his run at night and it was actually
reported to be good time.
He made good time with it.
A lot of these early men, apart from the wild-billed Shannon, were actually Alaskan natives, which
is really interesting.
You don't really hear about them, but they were Alaskan natives.
Then it was Sam Joseph.
He was another native who was a 35-year-old and he had a team of seven Malamutes.
Same as the first guy, really big dogs and the temperature at that point was negative
38 Fahrenheit.
He averaged nine miles an hour, but actually better than that.
It was one of the faster runs, so good for him.
He made 26 miles.
Then this is January 29th, Titus Nicolai, another native, ran 34 miles.
There's really no information on him, but he was met then with Dan Corning, who averaged
eight miles an hour for 24 miles.
No really information about his team either.
Then Edgar Calliant.
He was actually a musher for the mail service also, so he knew the... Excuse me, I'm talking
too much.
I never talk this much.
He was a musher for the mail service, so he knew the trail pretty good.
He went 30 miles.
Then it was Henry Pitca.
He has seven dogs and he actually had a trail that was in good condition.
He ran night and his speeds were greater than nine miles an hour for 30 miles.
Then it was Bill McCarty.
His lead dog was named Prince and he actually had a severe hour long snow storm during his
ride.
He arrived at Whiskicreek about 10 a.m. and the temperature was negative 40.
He went 28 miles in that severe snow storm.
Then it is the brothers, Edgar Nulliner.
His lead dog was five-year-old Dixie and he was actually a 21-year-old from Gallina.
I don't know where that is.
I assume it's in Alaska, Gallina.
He had seven malamutes and he was met by his brother George after 24 miles.
George Nulliner, he was actually a newlywed and he used the same team as his brother to
cover the next 24 miles.
Now Edgar Nulliner, the guy before George, claimed that he had a girl in another town,
so that's why he did this trip.
He wanted to go to Gallina to see his girl.
All right, after the two brothers is Charlie Evans.
Oh, Charlie Evans.
He hurts.
This story hurts my heart also.
He actually was 21 years old.
He left Bishop Mountains at 5 a.m. with a reported temperature of negative 64 degrees
Fahrenheit.
He borrowed dogs and during the run, he neglected to put furs on the dog's groins.
They ended up having frozen groins and I believe they later died from their injuries.
Really upsetting, I think he also he also ended up running, running along the sleigh
in order to stay warm and also to kind of lift his weight.
He went 30 miles and then Tommy Patsy Patterson, Patsy Patterson, and also a native and a male
carrier.
He ran a pretty straight trail, setting the fastest record, and he covered 36 miles in
three and a half hours, averaging a speed of more than 10 miles an hour.
All right, then Jack, Jack Screw and Nikolai, another native.
He was actually a small man and he was very strong.
Oh, he was the one who jogged.
My bad.
He was the one who jogged to lighten the load.
So he headed towards the Norton Sound.
He only averaged 60 miles, six miles an hour for his 40 miles, a very difficult trail.
And then there's Victor Anagik, another native.
He had an 11 dog team and he covered 35 miles, 34 miles in six hours.
And at this point, the serum was now 207 miles from Nome and it is the 31st of January.
So now at this point, the 31st of January, the serum will have just made it to the large
amount of serum.
The one million units of the doctor originally wanted will have just made it to Anchorage
and be ready to do its train ride up to Nenon.
But we have the 300,000 serum going to Nome right now.
And our next one was Miles Gogan.
No information on him, but he went for 40 miles.
And then Henry Ivanov.
He actually only went a half a mile and he actually had to settle a fight with his team
of dogs.
They were fighting.
And another interesting part is he was the one who transferred off to Lenonard Seppala.
So this guy, Lenonard Seppala was originally going to cover half the trail.
So it was a 674 mile trail and he was originally just going to cover half of it.
So all these men that came before him, he was going to basically do all their work.
But people had better plans and they intercepted him.
So that's why this Henry Ivanov only did half a mile because he was in charge of intercepting
the Seppala because Seppala had left Nome.
He left Nome and he rode his dogs to the meeting point that he was supposed to meet.
So he was completely not in contact with anyone.
He was just like, this is where I'm supposed to be.
This is what I'm doing.
I'm going to go do it.
And he was a very renowned musher.
So he had what is thought to be the hardest portion of trail.
And he actually went 91 miles with the serum.
Though in total, I believe he rode about 200 miles because like I said, he went from Nome
to meet the serum and then he went back with the serum.
So his lead dogs were Togo and Scotty and he was 48 years old.
And he was originally going to intercept the serum at New Lato, but they, like I said,
decided to do relays instead.
So he left Isaac's Point on the north side of Norton Bay and traveled 43 miles just outside
of Chautauk where he met Ivanov.
So he had already traveled 43 miles that day.
He gets the serum, he turns around, he goes right back where he had been coming from.
He turned around into temperature of negative 30 degrees Fahrenheit and also dark.
Then with this serum, this precious life saving serum, the dog's letters were told to be very,
very careful.
And instead of going for a fast route, go for the safe route, he decided, fuck that.
And he took the 20 mile C-cross.
So he crossed the, what's it called, I knew it earlier, the Norton Sound.
He crossed the Norton Sound for 20 miles instead of going around the safe route.
He just, fuck it.
He's like, I go right through the ice with his dog, Tongo.
And he stopped after that and he took a break, I believe, yes, yes, yes.
Okay.
So during, while he was crossing the sea, it was actually a blizzard, a blinding blizzard.
He couldn't see his hand in front of him, white out sort of thing.
And the only thing that got them across the sound was Tongo's sense of smell and knowledge
of the course.
So he finally got across and he stopped at a sod igloo.
He fed the dogs and he warmed up the serum because at every stop they were supposed to
take out the serum and warm it up and get it as far away from freezing as possible.
Because like I said, the serum cannot freeze, it is very dangerous.
So he was stopping and hoping that the blizzard would kind of stop.
But as it turned out, the blizzard would not stop.
So early Sunday morning, negative 30 degree temperatures again, deadly winds and the storm
not lessening.
He went out and he finished his leg, which was, like I said, 91 miles and the serum was
78 miles from no.
So when he did go back out after taking that break in the sod igloo, he had actually saw,
he turned around and saw that the sound, the ice that he had just traveled over had floated
away.
So during his time, he had actually cracked the ice or the ice had cracked.
So while he did make it over the sound, he may not have made the safe decision.
And then it is Charlie Olsen.
The lead dog of Charlie Olsen was Jack and he had a team of seven.
He had to go 25 miles.
He left at 7.15 Sunday afternoon, temperatures from negative 30 and estimated 40 miles an
hour wait.
He was actually hit with gusts that drove him off the trail.
And he stopped and put blankets on each dog because it was that cold.
He needed to cover them again.
Two dogs suffered badly frozen groins.
And when he stopped, he actually suffered from, um, what's it called?
Freeze on his hands.
I forget.
I was just talking about it all, but freeze on his hands.
He also frost frostbite frostbite.
He also suffered frostbite in his hands.
And then he arrived at the roadhouse at 7.30 and he surprised Gunnar Cason.
He thought Gunnar had thought that Olsen might've stopped to wait out the storm, but he didn't.
So they're making great pace and Gunnar Cason has the serum.
They are 53 miles from Nome and the lead dog is Balto.
So he, um, Cason was actually not supposed to be the last of the leg.
There was somebody else who was supposed to bring it in to Nome.
That was Ed Rohn.
But when Gunnar Cason had gotten to the, the roadhouse where Rohn was supposed to take
the final leg, um, he was early and Rohn still had his lights out and he decided to just
keep pressing on instead of waiting for Rohn to wake up or waking up Rohn and getting him
to saddle up his dogs and get going.
He just pressed on and decided to deliver the serum to Nome himself.
Also before that, I completely skipped his entire journey.
So he traveled through very severe storm and, um, he was crossing through places that had
very strong winds and they were just like straight line winds and at one point his sled
was flipped over and the serum was injected.
He had to search in the dark in the snow on his hands and knees and he actually took off
his gloves to feel around for the serum because this was going to save people's lives and
he found it.
Thankfully he found the serum and he kept going on his leg and he delivered it to Nome
at 5 30 a.m. in his 53 mile journey took seven and a half hours.
So that is the whole serum road to Nome.
Now the more interesting part of the story is kind of the the dogs in my opinion that
the dogs really the two dogs that are of most interest to me are Balto who was the head
dog of the last leg of the run, which was Gunnar Kason and then Togo, which was the
head dog of Lienard Seppala.
So these two guys, Lienard Seppala and Gunnar Kason actually knew each other.
They worked for the same mining company and like I said before, Lienard Seppala was kind
of the big guy in charge of like he was he was like a really superstar musher.
He was well known for it and he had this amazing dog Tongo.
So this dog Tongo, he he was originally not thought that he was going to be a sled dog.
He was actually really small.
He grew up to only be 48 pounds, which is small compared to typical sled dogs.
And he kind of always looked dirty, which is cute.
But when he was a puppy, he was ill and he was nursed a lot by Seppala's wife.
And then he grew up and he was very kind of rowdy and difficult and mischievous and showing
all the signs of becoming as Wikipedia says a canine delinquent.
So he he did not seem to be suited to be a sled dog.
So Seppala sent him away as a pet when he was six months old.
And then a few weeks later, this dog straight up fucking jumped through a plate glass and
runs back to Seppala's kennel.
And Seppala is so impressed by this dog just running through fucking glass to get back
home.
He's like, fuck it.
I'll keep him.
Maybe he'll I don't know, maybe he'll make some good of a sled dog.
And then this dog continued to be trouble because he would attack other leaders that
other dog leaders sled dog leaders when Seppala is running with them.
He eventually actually attacked somebody that was much larger than him and he was severely
injured after this attack.
He never did again.
And then when he was eight months old, so he was originally given away at six months
of age and then he run back at eight months, he actually sneakily goes and follows Seppala
where he's doing a sled run and he follows him, I guess, sneakily for a whole day and
he sleeps in the nightmare, the cabin.
The next day, Seppala sees him and he's kind of like, oh, that's why my dogs were so rowdy.
And his dogs have been difficult and yeah, sorry, Tongo kind of attacks a reindeer and
kind of instigates the other dogs to do that too.
So Seppala decides to harness him up with the other sled dogs to try and control them.
And as soon as he's harnessed with the other sled dogs, it's like a little switch is flipped
on his breath on his head and he's like, I'm a sled dog, I'm happy.
And he is just like a great dog after that.
And then throughout that entire run, Seppala keeps inching him closer and closer to being
the lead dog until at the very end, he's actually the lead position with the lead dog, Reski.
And that first day as a sled dog, he logged 75 miles and that is unheard of for a young
sled dog, especially one of nine months, eight months, especially one of eight months and
known as a puppy.
So Seppala called him an infant prodigy.
So that was, that's a story of Tongo, he's, Seppala called him as the best dog that had
ever traveled the Alaska trail.
And then there's Balto.
So like I said, Balto, sorry, goodness.
It's Friday so I'm having a little wine while I tell this story.
Okay, so Balto, he was the lead on the second, the last leg with Gunnar Kaysen.
Now Gunnar Kaysen wasn't actually much of a sled dogger, musher.
He wasn't much of a musher.
He actually didn't even have his own dogs, so he had to borrow from Seppala.
So he borrowed from Seppala's, what's it called, crib, like where canines live.
I don't remember, kennel, kennel.
He borrowed from Seppala's kennel and he found Balto.
Balto was actually also not really destined to be a sled dog.
He was, where is it, yeah, so he was actually neutered, pretty young.
And he was a, like a, he was a freight dog basically, he was just like a heavy worker
dog but for some reason Gunnar Kaysen decided to pick him as his lead dog.
I don't really understand why but he did.
I'm honestly not as interested in Balto as I am in Togo now.
As a young child I think I was more interested in Balto because obviously he's the one who
the movie was about and he's the one who gets revered but truly he wasn't the star, he wasn't
the star dog.
It was Togo even though Balto's the one receiving all these accolades and recognition.
But Balto's story after the serum run is really quite sad.
He was, like I said, neutered at a very young age so he was never going to be used for breeding.
And after he received all these accolades, he got a statue, he was, he had a wreath laid
on him by a silent film star, he was kind of relegated to the vaudeville ring and with
his team and he was really treated quite poorly there and his entire team was nearly mistreated
to death but then George Kimball discovered the dogs in this vaudeville thing and he worked
together with a newspaper called the Plane Dealer and they brought Balto and his team
to Ohio to the Cleveland Zoo, Berkside Zoo, now the Cleveland Metro Park Zoo and they
kind of remained out their life there.
Now Balto was actually euthanized at age 14, it doesn't say why, for some reason I think
that these dogs are just euthanized when they get air quotes old, which is weird and kind
of sad because Togo didn't even run the serum run until I believe he was 12 so that's two
years before he would have been euthanized if he was Balto but Togo was actually euthanized
when he was 16.
Like I said, I don't know why exactly they euthanized them but both these dogs were euthanized
so at the end of the day in this town of Nome there were only, there aren't quite confirmed
numbers but Wikipedia said there were five, six, or seven deaths that were on the books
for people that had died of diphtheria but they believe there were at least a hundred
of the native citizens, the native Alaskans who may have died because the native Alaskans
tend to bury their children and not tell doctors about it so we don't know how many native
Alaskans had died in Nome from diphtheria but there were between five and seven of the
white citizens of Nome who had died and that is all really truly thank you to the dogs
that had delivered the medicine.
Obviously the mushers played a vital role but during a lot of these conditions they
relied heavily on the dogs because once you bring a dog down a path that dog always knows
that path even if it's a whiteout condition they can manage so it is said that how you
know if it's a good musher is if they know when to turn it over to the dog and luckily
all these men knew when to turn it over to the dog and now the vaccines, the serum made
it safe to the citizens so all's well that ends well for the citizens, another story
for the dogs but that's kind of the way of the world.
Something that I thought was a little ironic is one of the documentaries I was watching
when they were talking about Balto receiving all these accolades they were saying movie
stars and furs came and recognized him and it's just like furs really it's a fucking
dog why are you wearing your furs to meet him like dude have some but it's a different
time I guess they maybe didn't have faux fur back in the 20s, diphtheria it's actually
an infection and it's highly contagious and actually spread either through direct contact
or the air and it can also be spread by contaminated objects there is a diphtheria vaccine it is
effective and available in a number of formulations there are normally three or four doses and
you get them along with tinnitus and pertussis vaccine and they're recommended in childhood
and also the diphtheria tinnitus vaccine is recommended every 10 years I believe that's
the Tdap vaccine I had the Tdap vaccine twice recently I had to have it the every 10 years
and then it's just one of those ones that you have to get when you're pregnant now your
pharmacy if you're in America can give you this vaccine if you are of a certain age and
everybody on here should be at least of a certain age so if it has been 10 years since
you got your Tdap vaccine maybe think of it and get it because we don't need diphtheria
coming back also your pharmacy can give you your flu vaccine as well you can actually
get them at the same time if you have two arms one in each arm that's my little soapbox
I don't know if this was quite followable I hope it was I hope you learned a little
bit as much as I could give you about this topic that I just like got fascinated with
randomly today maybe you'll find it fascinating too I don't know yeah have a good day