Historical Hounds-Balto

87 years ago on February 2 1925, a Siberian Husky named Balto lead his team of Huskies into Nome, Alaska and earned a spot in canine history.   Balto and his teal lead by Norewegian musher Gunnar Kaasen where delivering a serum to treat a diptheria epidemic that had already claimed the lives of several children and threatened to kill more.     Plains and cars could not enter Nome due to the hazardous weather conditions so doctors realized that the only hope for the town was to have the medicine delivered by mushers and their dogs.  

Several mushers and dogs participated in the run, with the most dangerous part being run by a dog named Togo and the musher Leonard Seppala.  

Togo and Seppala 

However, as Balto was the last lead dog to run and the one to arrive in Nome with the serum, he got the credit and the fame.  

Balto and Kassen

Balto and Kassen became overnight sensations.  They were formally thanked by President Calvin Coolidge and a statue of Balto was erected in Manhattan's Central Park, near the Tisch Children's Zoo.

Sadly, fame was not a blessing for Balto and he wound up on Vaudeville circuit where he was neglected and abused.   Eventually, George Kimble, a Cleveland business man, bought Balto and moved him and his compatriots to the Cleveland Zoo, where they received better treatment.  Balto died in 1933 at the age of 14.     His body remains on display in the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

Dedicated to the indomitable spirit of the sled dogs that relayed antitoxin six hundred miles over rough ice, across treacherous waters, through Arctic blizzards from Nenana to the relief of stricken Nome in the Winter of 1925.

Endurance · Fidelity · Intelligence