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Togo - In the Shadow of Balto

© Joy Butler

On March 16th 2004, Mitch Seavey of Seward Alaska, fulfilled a longtime dream of winning the Iditarod sled dog race when he slid under the burled arches in Nome behind his 8 dogs. He and his husky team navigated more than 1100 miles of snow, ice, and bitterly cold winds in just 9 and ½ days, finishing first among 87 entries. Each March, the grueling race is run from Anchorage to Nome in commemorative of the 1925 run carrying lifesaving serum to diphtheria victims.

The heroes of that serum run enjoyed a short time of recognition before the years of vaudeville and, later, the Great Depression preoccupied minds, and the mushers' great mission was all but forgotten. However, decades later, the story was revived through a movie called Balto. But whatever became of Balto, and what about the other dogs in that mercy run?

Balto was born in Alaska, into the kennel of Leonhard Seppala who worked for a gold mining company, driving supplies by dog sled to the camps and taking sick or injured miners for medical care in Nome. Seppala, a seasoned musher, bred and raised Siberian huskies and named this pup after Samuel J. Balto, one of the two men to first cross the Greenland Ice Cap. Even though Balto grew to be one of his largest dogs, Seppala considered an older husky named Togo to be his top mushing dog. Togo was small by husky standards, but strong and determined. Named after the Japanese admiral, Togo Heihachiro, he dominated the 34 other dogs in Seppala's kennel and could be counted on to keep the trail through the harshest blizzard. Still, Seppala's young assistant, Gunnar Kaasen, favored Balto.

When a diphtheria epidemic broke out in Nome, the only way to get medication from Anchorage to the isolated town was by dog sled. Seppala, being the best musher in the area, was chosen to meet the train, pick up the serum and deliver it to the small community. Everyone was confident that he and his team was the most qualified to make the 1300 mile trip through blizzard conditions in the peak of a savage Alaskan winter. Of course, Seppala relied on Togo to lead the grueling run.

After Seppala left, officials came up with a better plan of using a relay so that fresh dogs could deliver the serum even more quickly. They wired a message to the Nenana train station and so it was that, on the trail, Seppala met up with another driver who had already left with the serum. Learning of the relay, he took the 20 lb package and turned his team around. Meanwhile, Gunnar Kaasen had been asked to join the relay and he harnessed Balto at the head of his team.