A century ago, a team of determined mushers and their sled dogs embarked on a perilous journey to deliver life-saving diphtheria serum to the town of Nome, facing extreme weather and treacherous conditions along the way.
FILE - Gunnar Kaasen and with his dog Balto , the heroic dogsled team leader, sit for a portrait in the early 1920s. ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The Alaska Gold Rush town of Nome faced a bleak winter. It was hundreds of miles from anywhere, cut off by the frozen sea and unrelenting blizzards, and under siege from a contagious disease known as the “strangling angel” for the way it suffocated children.
“People just dropped whatever they were doing,” she said. “These mushers got their teams ready and went, even though it was really cold and challenging conditions on the trail.” Nome, western Alaska’s largest community, had about 1,400 residents a century ago. Its most recent supply ship had arrived the previous fall, before the Bering Sea froze, without any doses of the antitoxin. Those the local doctor, Curtis Welch, had were outdated, but he wasn’t worried. He hadn’t seen a case of diphtheria in the 18 years he had practiced in the area.
West Coast hospitals had antitoxin doses, but it would take time to get them to Seattle and then onto a ship for Seward, an ice-free port south of Anchorage. In the meantime, enough for 30 people was found at an Anchorage hospital. Thanks to Alaska’s new telegraph lines and the spread of radio, the nation followed along, captivated, as 20 mushers — many of them Alaska Natives — with more than 150 dogs relayed the serum to Nome. They battled deep snow, whiteouts so severe they couldn’t see the dogs in front of them, and life-threatening temperatures that plunged at times to minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit .Seppala, a Norwegian settler, left from Nome to meet the supply near the halfway point and begin the journey back.
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