The Race against Time - Part 2
- Marleen Tigersee
- Mar 29, 2023
- 5 min read
The race begins
Now there was no more time to lose. A plan was made to set up two teams for the transport. One was to start from the station in Nenana, from where the serum was to arrive, the other from the destination point in Nome. About halfway, the handover of the precious cargo was planned. To protect the 300,000 units of anti-toxin from the elements, the glass vials were wrapped in lined blankets and stowed in a metal cylinder that alone weighed almost 10 kilograms. The musher who was to take over the first leg was Willard "Wild Bill" Shannon. Together with his nine dogs, he set off on the morning of 27 January for Tolovana, 84 km away. The temperature was -46 degrees Celsius and was expected to drop even further.
With every hour that passed, Shannon felt the cold creep more into his clothes. He tried to stay warm by moving his arms and legs, even running short distances alongside the sledge, but he felt he would not be able to keep up this effort for long. Besides, he saw how a few of his younger dogs were no longer running steadily. The musher knew that if he didn't take a break soon, he, his animals and the serum were doomed. At the end of his tether, Shannon finally reached a roadhouse* at around 3am, his face blackened by frostbite, four of his dogs had bloody muzzles and were so exhausted that they could not go on.
Desperate measures
Meanwhile, the situation in Nome got more seriously by the hour. Despite adherence to the quarantine, the reports of further cases did not diminish. Dr Welch, who had managed to find a batch of already expired anti-toxin, was now faced with the difficult choice of whom to administer the drug to. Who could be saved with the old serum, if it still had any effect at all?
The newspapers had learned about the diphtheria epidemic by now and were reporting daily from all parts of the United States about the dramatic situation in Alaska. Public sympathy was enormous, as temperatures in other states were also at record lows and many places were cut off from the outside world because of the extreme weather.
After Dr. Welch had to report the fifth death, it was decided to send more dog teams to bring the serum to Nome even faster. Above all, the Norwegian musher Leonhard Seppala was to be supported, who had been assigned to the longest and most dangerous stage along Norton Sound, a kilometre-long, treacherous ice surface over which violent gusts of wind whipped and which only the most experienced sledge drivers dared to navigate. But how could they reach Seppala, who was already on his way? Another musher was sent to intercept the Norwegian on the trail. A risky undertaking, as it was not unlikely to miss one another in the dark or in bad weather.
Through the snowstorm
On 31 January, Seppala set off across Norton Sound with his dog tag team, led by his lead dog Togo. Storm clouds were brewing in the sky and hard frozen snowflakes swirled around him like hailstones. He had already covered over 270 km and was still a long way from his destination until his team suddenly veered a little off course. In the midst of the snow chaos, his dogs had actually found the musher who had driven out to meet Seppala and deliver the serum to him earlier than planned. Once the cargo was safely stowed on Seppala's sledge, he immediately set off on his way back. Even though his route was now shorter, it was still over 140 km to the end of his stage.
If Seppala had had tailwind on the way there, it was now blowing straight into his face on the way back. A storm raged across Norton Sound, making it impossible for Seppala to listen for dangers like breaking ice. Soon it became so dark that the musher had to rely completely on the senses of his dogs. This time, too, Togo and the others could be relied on. After endless kilometres and one stopover, they finally reached the end of the stage.
The rescue
On 1 February, Gunnar Kaasen, another Norwegian musher, took over the serum. The storm had not abated, but on the contrary had increased in strength. He waited a few hours in a roadhouse, but when it became clear that the weather would not improve so quickly, he decided to set off. Every musher is aware of the dangers of being out in such a snowstorm. A multiple winner of the All Alaska Sweepstakes** once described it like this:
The air was filled with the swirling snow like smoke. It was grainy like salt and stung like steel splinters. It stuck my fur coats and my dogs' fur together until we ended up encased in a crust of snow as solid as ice. The noise deafened me. I couldn't hear, couldn't see, couldn't breathe. It was as if the dogs and I were fighting against all the diabolical elements of the universe.***
Soon after setting off, Kaasen realised the full extent of the weather conditions. The trail was no longer recognisable through the masses of snow and his lead dog Balto and the rest of the team had to stop again and again and take a new path, over mountains and dangerously slippery ice surfaces. 16 kilometres from the last roadhouse, the storm gained such force that it knocked Kaasen and his sled over. He struggled out of a snowbank and tried to find the serum that had fallen in the darkness. He only managed to do so when he had taken off his gloves, a risky procedure because in temperatures of -50 degrees Celsius one can suffer frostbite on the hands after only 30 seconds.
When everything was safely stowed away again, Kaasen made took off to the last handover point, but when he arrived at the roadhouse, there was no light on. The musher waiting there had received instructions that the relay was to pause due to the bad snowstorm, but Kaasen knew nothing about it. In order not to lose any time, he decided to ride the last 32 km as well. At the end of his strength and half frozen, Kaasen reached Nome at half past five in the morning. The small town was saved.
Heroic dogs
With the help of the serum, further deaths could be prevented. However, the amount was not enough to help all those who had fallen ill, so another dog team had to be sent out. On 21 February, the quarantine was finally lifted. Although a total of 20 mushers and several dogs were involved in the relay, Gunnar Kaasen and Balto in particular became international celebrities. After the "Great Race of Mercy" (as the race was called by the media), they toured the USA for a year and met, among others, President Calvin Coolidge and silent film star Mary Pickford. In December 1925, a statue of Balto was erected in New York's Central Park with the inscription:
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
Very insightful