Togo - In the Shadow of Balto

Balto and his teammates, Fox, Sye, Billie, Tillie, Alaska Slim, and Old Moctoc suffered poor transport conditions, inadequate care, and stifling heat. One day, a Cleveland businessman and former boxer named George Kimble, walked into the museum. He saw the noble dogs languishing in small quarters and panting in the heat and his heart went out to them. Kimble made an appeal through the newspaper to raise money to buy them from the museum. 1200 people donated enough funds to buy the dogs and ship them to Cleveland where they spent their remaining years in refuge at the Brookside Zoo, now called the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. They were well cared for in a beautiful nature setting and happily pulled sleds around the park when winter snows came.

Though given the best of care by a veterinarian named Dr. Powell, time took its toll and the dogs, one by one, slipped away. On March 14, 1933, Balto, age 11, partially blind, partially deaf, and arthritic joined his departed teammates. Only one dog remained and he passed away a year later at the age of 17.

Balto's body was stuffed and mounted by a taxidermist at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History where it still stands.

Togo spent his retirement in Maine, at the kennels of Elizabeth Ricker, champion sled dog racer and friend of Seppala. He sired many puppies before his death in 1929, at the age of 16. His body too was mounted and is now on display at the Iditarod race headquarters in Wasilla.

Bronze statues of Togo and Balto rest outside a rustic cabin that houses the Wolf Wilderness exhibit in the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. Through the years, Balto has garnered most of the attention for the heroic run, leaving Togo to stand in his shadow but, in 1960, an aged Seppala still claimed, "I never had a better dog than Togo."

Info on each driver and his contribution to the serum run can be found here.

More info and links to actual photos are posted here.

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