Race Against the Polar Night
- Holly DeLeon
- 3 days ago
- 9 min read
Deep in the winter of 1925, a quiet terror settled over Nome, Alaska. Children were falling gravely ill from a diphtheria outbreak as the town's only doctor watched his antitoxin supply vanish. What followed became one of the most legendary acts of bravery in American history.
A Town on the Edge of the World
Nome began as a frontier settlement perched on the far western edge of the continent, surrounded by frozen ocean and hundreds of miles of wilderness. Over a hundred years ago, there were no roads, no rail lines, and no ships that could break the winter ice. The only airplanes capable of making the journey sat grounded; their engines too fragile for the cold and visibility limited by the prevailing darkness of arctic winter. That January, several townsfolk became sick from diphtheria; a bacterial infection that spread rapidly from person to person. Before modern vaccines, diphtheria was often fatal... particularly in children.
Dr. Curtis Welch recognized the onset of an epidemic after the fifth case in a week and called the local mayor to hold an emergency council meeting. The council immediately issued a quarantine in hopes of slowing the spread of the disease, and Dr. Welch sent radio telegrams to the surrounding communities to warn them of imminent danger. The nearest supply of life saving serum was in Anchorage, nearly seven hundred miles away. And so Alaska turned to the only heroes capable of crossing that distance in time: the mushers and their dogs.
The Call That Echoed Across the North
More than twenty mushers stepped forward. They were Native Alaskan (Athabaskans), Scandinavian, Russian, and American; and most of them were local mail carriers who used the Iditarod Trail for transport. They were men who understood the land and could read the language of snow and wind. They gathered their teams, supplies, and the precious medicine and set off across the silent wilderness. Together they formed a relay that would carry the serum from village to village, sled to sled, across mountains, frozen rivers, and the vast, empty sweep of the tundra. There was no guarantee they would survive.
Into the Storm
Each musher carried the serum wrapped in quilts and placed inside a small metal cylinder; precious cargo that more than 10,000 lives in Nome and the surrounding towns were depending on. The temperatures plunged to sixty degrees below zero: the lowest they had been in Interior Alaska in twenty years. Winds roared across the landscape and pushed snow into drifts more than ten feet deep. Lanterns froze. Breath crystallized.
The sled dogs ran with their heads low, their paws burning from the cold, their bodies driven by instinct and loyalty to their drivers. Three dogs from the first team, inexperienced in mushing in such extreme temperatures, didn't survive the trip. Their driver arrived at the next handoff with parts of his face blackened by frostbite. Some teams pushed through blizzards so dense they could not see the lead dog. Others crossed frozen rivers that cracked beneath them. One musher nearly lost his hands to frostbite. Another wept when he passed the serum on, convinced he had not done enough.
Yet the chain held.
Togo: The Veteran Who Carried the Impossible
At the center of the story stands Togo, a small and wiry Siberian husky with a spirit far larger than his frame. In 1925, Togo was already twelve years old and had hundreds of miles under his belt as a lead sled dog. Under the guidance of his musher, Togo led his team across the most dangerous and demanding leg of the relay. Their route stretched more than a third of the entire journey and included the treacherous crossing of Norton Sound, where shifting sea ice could break apart without warning.
Togo was never meant to be a legend. At just 48 pounds, the Siberian Husky from ancient Chukchi stock seemed too small, too wild, too reckless to amount to anything. When his musher, Leonhard Seppala, gave him away as a puppy, Togo had other plans. He escaped and ran back to the kennel, scratching at the door until Seppala relented. With ice-blue eyes blazing against his dark brown, cream, and gray coat, Togo tore through the ranks of Seppala's team with supernatural drive. Despite his size, he pushed past every dog ahead of him until he stood where he belonged: at the front. There, as lead dog, he became unstoppable. That fierce determination, that refusal to be anything but a sled dog, would one day save hundreds of lives.
While history remembers Balto, who ran the final 55 miles to glory, it was Togo who bore the true burden of the serum run. For over 260 miles (nearly five times Balto's distance) the grizzled senior led Seppala's team through conditions that should have killed them all. Blizzards reduced visibility to nothing. Temperatures dropped to unbearable lows. Most terrifying of all, Togo guided the team across the shifting, breaking ice of Norton Sound, where one wrong step meant drowning in black water beneath the unstable icy surface. When his team needed him most, Togo dug his heels in and kept going.
Seppala would call him the finest dog he ever trained, a once-in-a-lifetime soul. Time magazine would later name him the most heroic animal in history. Togo retired to Maine, lived to 16, and when he passed away in 1929, his story seemed destined to fade into the Alaskan wilderness. But legends don't die. His preserved body stands now at the Iditarod Trail Headquarters in Wasilla, a testament to the willpower of what was once a scrappy castoff mutt. Togo didn't just lead a relay. He showed us what greatness actually requires: bravery, determination, and pushing through the pain to make it to the next milestone; no matter how far or difficult that may be.
Balto: The Dog Who Delivered Hope
When the serum reached the final leg of its desperate journey, it was placed in the hands of musher Gunnar Kaasen and his lead dog, Balto. The storm had grown more vicious as the night deepened, with winds howling across the frozen landscape and snow falling so thick it turned the world into an impenetrable white void. Kaasen could barely see his own hands in front of his face, let alone the trail ahead. But Balto knew the way.
The black and white Siberian husky had run this route before, and even when his musher lost all sense of direction in the blinding blizzard, Balto pressed forward with an almost supernatural determination. His paws found purchase on ice-slicked ground, his nose cut through the wind to find the path, and his powerful legs drove the team onward through conditions that would have been impossible for humans to traverse alone.
Mile after mile, the team pushed through the relentless arctic night. Balto's breathing came in ragged gasps, ice crystals forming around his muzzle with each exhalation. His legs trembled with exhaustion, muscles screaming from the strain of pulling the heavily laden sled through snowdrifts that sometimes rose to his chest. Kaasen, frostbitten and barely conscious, could do little but hold on and trust his lead dog completely. At one point, a fierce gust of wind nearly overturned the sled, threatening to spill the precious cargo into the snow where it would surely be lost forever. But Balto steadied himself, dug in with claws and determination, and kept the team moving forward. The dog's eyes had begun to freeze shut, ice clinging to his lashes and blurring his vision, yet still he refused to stop or slow his pace.
In the early hours of February 2, 1925, as dawn began to break over the frozen landscape, Balto finally led his team into Nome. His fur was completely coated in thick ice that made him look more like a ghost than a dog, transformed into a living sculpture by the brutal cold. His legs trembled so violently that each step seemed like it might be his last, yet he continued forward with the sled trailing behind him. The serum remained secure in its container.
When the townspeople emerged to greet them, many wept openly at the sight of the exhausted dog and his barely conscious musher. Balto had traveled through conditions that meteorologists would later describe as unsurvivable, through a storm that had claimed the lives of men and animals alike, and he had not failed.
The children of Nome would live. Within hours, Dr. Welch began administering the antitoxin to the stricken children, and the diphtheria outbreak that had threatened to devastate the isolated town was finally brought under control. Balto, the unassuming sled dog who had refused to give up even when death seemed certain, had delivered not just a package but hope itself. His journey became legend, a story told and retold of courage, determination, and the unbreakable bond between musher and dog. He had run through hell frozen over and emerged victorious, and Nome would never forget him.
Written in the Snow
News of the rescue spread across the nation like wildfire, capturing the imagination of a country hungry for heroes in the midst of the harsh winter of 1925. Balto instantly became a symbol of heroism, his name splashed across newspaper headlines from coast to coast, his image immortalized in photographs that showed his ice-crusted fur and exhausted but noble bearing. Statues were commissioned, children's books were written, and the brave sled dog became a household name almost overnight.
Togo, though less celebrated at the time, carried the serum through the most dangerous and longest stretch of the relay, battling through treacherous sea ice and blizzard conditions that many considered impassable. He is now recognized as the true endurance champion of the relay, his contribution finally given the recognition it deserved decades after that desperate winter.
Yet the Serum Run was never the story of only two dogs, no matter how much the public wanted to crown singular heroes. It was the story of an entire chain of courage stretching across 674 miles of frozen wilderness, a relay of twenty mushers and more than 150 sled dogs who each played their part in the miracle. It was the story of dogs who ran until they left crimson tracks in the snow, and mushers who trusted them with their lives and the lives of an entire town.
Heroes Among Us
Nearly a century later, you can still see that same spark of courage in dogs who have never set foot on the Iditarod Trail. You can see it in the quiet resilience of the dogs waiting for homes here at Highland Lakes Canine Rescue; a sanctuary here in the Texas Hill Country dedicated to saving dogs who would not survive in overcrowded shelters.
Many of the dogs who arrive here come with medical challenges, emotional wounds, or histories marked by neglect. Some have been abandoned. Some have never known kindness. Some have been overlooked again and again in shelters where space is limited and time is short. At HLCR, these dogs are not just given a second chance. They’re given the chance they never had.
Our shelter’s mission is rooted in a simple but powerful belief: every dog has value, and every dog deserves the opportunity to become the best version of themselves. We specialize in rescuing dogs who would otherwise be euthanized due to overcrowding, medical needs, or behavioral challenges. These are the dogs who need patience, structure, and compassion. These are the dogs who need someone to see the hero inside them.
And HLCR does exactly that.
The Quiet Heroism of Rescue Dogs
Heroism does not always look like a sprint through the Arctic night. Sometimes it looks like a dog who finally lifts its head after days of fear. Sometimes it looks like a gentle tail wag from a dog who once trembled at every sound. Sometimes it looks like a soft head resting on a weathered hand, offering comfort without a single word. These moments happen every day here at the shelter.
A dog who learns to trust again carries the same ancestral bravery as Togo stepping onto shifting ice. A dog who comforts a grieving family shows the same instinctive devotion that guided Balto through a storm. A dog who waits patiently for a forever home demonstrates a kind of endurance that echoes across generations. Every dog at HLCR carries a heroic legacy in their bones, and every one of them has the potential to save a life, to heal a heart, or to bring light into a place that needs it.
Be Part of the Story
The Serum Run reminds us that courage can navigate unimaginable darkness and cold yet still arrive just in the nick of time. At Highland Lakes Canine Rescue, that courage arrives in the form of dogs who refuse to give up and the people who refuse to give up on them.
You can be part of that story. You can adopt. You can foster. You can volunteer. You can donate. You can help write the next chapter for a dog who has been waiting for someone like you. Because heroism is not only found in the frozen wilderness of Alaska. It is found in the quiet moments of connection between a rescued dog and the person who chooses to love them.
And sometimes, the greatest acts of courage happen on four paws. Adopt www.hlcr.org/adopt
Foster www.hlcr.org/foster
Volunteer www.hlcr.org/volunteer
Donate www.hlcr.org/donate
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