In a little less than 11 days, on March 1, the Iditarod race will begin.  The Iditarod is an exciting dog-sled race from Anchorage to Nome – a total distance of 975 miles.  It is exciting even in our modern, perhaps jaded, view, but the story behind this race is historic.

Alaska in winter can be a treacherous place.  The modern race is as safe as it can be made, with regular checkpoints, where supplies have been pre-placed, and mushers and their dogs can rest along the way.

The original “Iditarod” was another matter, indeed.

In 1925, long before there was an Alaskan Highway, Nome was isolated for months out of the year.  The only way to get to Nome was by dog sled.  No ships or planes or cars or trucks could get to Nome in winter.

In the late 1890′s and early 1900′s, settlers had come to Alaska following a gold strike. They traveled by boat to the coastal towns of Seward and Knik and from there, by land into the gold fields. The trail they used is today known as The Iditarod Trail, first surveyed by  the Alaska Road Commission in 1908 and now one of the National Historic Trails as so designated by the Congress of the United States. In the winter, their only means of travel was by dog team.

The Iditarod Trail soon became the major “thoroughfare” through Alaska. Mail was carried across this trail, people used the trail to get from place to place and supplies were transported via the Iditarod Trail. Priests, ministers and judges traveled between villages via dog team.

https://iditarod.com/about/history/

The dogs and sleds were there long before the settlers came from the lower states, of course.  The native population had used them for centuries. According to “Dog Sledding’s History and Rise (dogsled.com),

It is believed that dog sledding has started in the arctic region. These regions are covered in ice and no transportation was possible. Horses could not last in the harsh arctic region. But the dogs were better solution to this problem. Dogs’ endurance was much greater than the endurance of a horse and they could survive treacherous terrain much better. A team of six dogs could handle 500 to 700 pounds on one sled. That’s why dog sledding became popular in arctic region. Archaeological evidence shows dog sledding in Canada, North America, and Siberia originated 4000 years ago.  The Inuit used dog power for traveling from one place to another. They were also used for hunting and monitoring trap lines in the Canadian arctic wilderness. Inuit invented the dog sled which was pulled by the dogs. This sled was made of a mid range floating basket and a piece of wood. It was known as “komatik”.

Back to the story of the original, 1925, Great Race to Nome:

     In December 1924, the first diphtheria-like illness was reported in the native village of Holy Cross, just a few miles away from Nome. The two-year old boy died the next morning. His parents, who were native Inuits, would not allow his body to be autopsied. As a result, three more children in the same area died with similar symptoms before the local doctor, Dr. Curtis Welch, could diagnose their illness as diphtheria.

     On January 20, 1925, a three-year old child was properly diagnosed with diphtheria. Dr. Welch had six thousand units of antitoxin in his office, but it was six years old. He feared it was too old to be useful. The child died the next day.

     The following day, a seven-year-old girl was diagnosed with diphtheria. She died later the same day. It was clear to Dr. Welch that the town of Nome was facing an epidemic.  Dr. Welch called a town council meeting to discuss the situation. He told city officials he needed at least one million units of serum to hold off the spread of diphtheria. Telegrams were sent to Governor Scott Bone and the U.S. Public Health Service in Washington, D.C. asking for assistance in obtaining the antitoxin. By January 24, there were two more deaths and twenty more confirmed cases. The epidemic promised to wipe out the entire city of Nome if the medicine didn’t arrive. Finally, serum was found in Anchorage. Governor Bone was faced with the difficult decision of how best to safely deliver it to Nome.

     There were only two choices: deliver it by airplane or by dogsled. In their book, The Cruelest Miles, Gay and Laney Salisbury say that many Alaskans believe their state would not have developed were it not for sled dogs. They quote a sled driver as saying, “A man is only as good as his dogs when he is on the trails of Alaska…and a dog is only as good as his feet.”

     Governor Bone weighed the risks of both choices. The bush planes available in Alaska had open cockpits and water-cooled engines. Flying an airplane in fifty degree below zero weather was too big a risk. The Board of Health also rejected the use of an airplane. They voted unanimously for the dogsled relay. Governor Bone enlisted the most experienced dogsled racers to help get the serum from outside Anchorage to Nome. Only expert dogsled racers could make this journey of mercy in the middle of the worst winter since 1905. All told, there were twenty men and 150 dogs called upon to make the run. These brave drivers would have to drive a team of dogs day and night over 674 miles to bring the life-saving serum to Nome.

     On Tuesday, January 27, 1925, a musher named “Wild Bill” Shannon left Nenana on the first leg of the race. He was a fearless mail driver who was known to take risks, no doubt an explanation for his nickname. He was handed the twenty-pound package at the Nenana train station. He and his nine-dog team would bring the serum from Nenana to Tolovana, where another musher would take over. Because the temperature was approaching fifty below zero, by the time Shannon arrived at the first roadhouse, (a small shack where he and the dogs could rest) he had severe frostbite on his face. After resting four hours, he headed back into the storm to bring the serum to Tolovana. Three of his dogs had to be left at the roadhouse because the below freezing temperature had taken its toll on them. Shannon arrived at the roadhouse in Tolovana at 11 A.M on January 28th. The temperature was 62 degrees below zero.

Mushers and about 150 sled dogs relayed the antitoxin 674 miles (1,085 km) by dog sled across the U.S. territory of Alaska in a record-breaking five and a half days, saving the small city of Nome and the surrounding communities from an incipient epidemic. Both the mushers and their dogs were portrayed as heroes in the newly popular medium of radio, and received headline coverage in newspapers across the United States.  Balto, the lead sled dog on the final stretch into Nome, became the most famous canine celebrity of the era after Rin Tin Tin, and his statue is a popular tourist attraction in New York City’s Central Park. The publicity also helped spur an inoculation campaign in the U.S. that dramatically reduced the threat of the disease.