3/13/13 Chatterbox
Betty Kaiser
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| Photo from the Internet |
The so-called “Last Great Race On Earth” is held in Alaska every
year in the month of March. This famous week long, Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race
has always been somewhat of a mystery to me. Sixty six musher teams each led
by 13-16 sled dogs, run a grueling 1,000 mile trek from the town of Willow
through the punishing frozen wilderness to the gold rush town of Nome on the
western coast.
It gives me chills just thinking about it. But when asked
why they do it, one race organizer responded, “We do it because it’s important;
because we love the dogs, the race, Alaska and this sport. We do it because
there is history and this is the Last Great Race on Earth.”
Yes, there are prizes: bragging rights, first place is a
2013 Dodge Ram truck and a $50,400 cash prize; plus other prizes including
$3,000 in gold nuggets. However, most of the mushers say that whatever prize
money they win is barely enough to feed their stable of dogs (some have over
100), let alone pay their other bills. BTW: the last musher to finish
extinguishes (and wins!) a red finish lantern.
Why do they really do it? They do it because they love it.
The most common sled dog breeds are Alaskan Malamutes and
Siberian Huskies. The dogs appear well cared for. Photos show them being fitted
with booties for the day’s run, fed, resting on piles of hay, checked by
veterinarians and loved on by support teams. Still, the weather, ice and sheer
stamina needed to run the equivalent distance from Cottage Grove to Los Angeles
in horrific weather, takes its toll. Over the course of 40 years, several dozen
dogs have died.
The Iditarod Race was originally conceived in 1973, as a way
to celebrate Alaska’s centennial as an American territory, it eventually came
to include a lifesaving mission by mushers and their sled dogs in 1925. In
fact, there was even a movie made about it that I didn’t see. So if you didn’t
see it either, here’s the story…
It was Jan. 25,1925, when Dr. Curtis Welch discovered an
outbreak of diphtheria in a village outside Nome that could kill the region’s
population of 10,000 people. Soon this upper respiratory disease killed three
boys. Welch didn’t have enough antitoxin to save the rest of the villagers from
this highly contagious disease. Anchorage had a supply but it was nearly 1200
miles away and un-accessible in winter.
Nome’s ports were blocked by ice for the winter.
Transportation options were few. The engine of the primitive aircraft that was
available was frozen and wouldn’t start. The nearest railroad was 674 miles
away and would take 30 days to reach by dog team. The only way in was overland,
via the Iditarod/Seward-to-Nome Mail Trail that ran from Seward to Nome, along
the Bering Sea.
Dr. Welch pleaded for help via telegrams and ordered
quarantine.
Alaska’s Territorial Governor ordered the serum put on a
special train and picked up in Nenana. A relay of the 20 top mail carrier
mushers (sled dog drivers) would take it from there. The dogs delivered mail in
15-20 days. But could they get the serum to Nome in time?
Here, the facts get a little fuzzy. When the train pulled
into Nenana at 11 p.m. on Jan. 27, the temperature was 40°-below. A man of
(formerly) dubious character named Wild Bill, loaded the serum and headed down
to the frozen Tanana River, where the temp would dip to minus-62. He covered 52
miles by 5:30 a.m. The physical cost was high. When they stopped, Bill’s face
had frostbite; blood was dripping from the mouth of his dogs; two others would
die from frozen lungs and more dogs would die before the race was over.
Wild Bill handed off the serum and the race to Nome was on!
Miraculously, one-by-one, in relay fashion, through whiteouts, blizzards, and
impossible conditions, connections were made. On the final leg, the musher had
snow blindness and was unable to see. Balto, his magnificent Siberian Husky,
unerringly led the team to Nome and became a legendary hero. The Great Race of
Mercy was completed in 5 days, 7 hours.
The serum was delivered to Dr. Welch at 5:30 a.m. on Feb. 2.
It arrived with only 12 hours to spare. He thawed the frozen serum,
administered it to a patient and it worked! Each musher was paid $18.66 plus a
$25 trail bonus from the Alaska Territorial government. Four of them would die
within two years on the trail.
By the time you read this, we will all know the winner of
the 2013 race. His or her incredible skill, courage and stamina will be
celebrated. I, however, will be congratulating those amazing dogs. I think of
how blindly obedient they are and how confused they must be as they run across
the treacherous Alaska wilderness. After all, they don’t know about the Great
Mission of Mercy of their predecessors.
Balto is honored with a statue in New York’s Central Park. A
male Siberian Husky, he was born in 1919 in Nome, Alaska, (that’s why he knew
his way home!). He died in Cleveland, Ohio, after being rescued from a
humiliating life on the vaudeville circuit by George Kimble, a Chicago
businessman. The statue’s plaque says:
“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
As a dog lover, I can only say, “Amen!”
Betty Kaiser’s Chatterbox is about people,
places, family, and other matters of the heart.
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