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Speaker 1: Happy Saturday. Today is the anniversary of Dr Curtis Welsh

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Speaker 1: sending an urgent telegram asking for dip theory of serum

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Speaker 1: to be sent to Nome, Alaska. That was on January

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Speaker 1: twenty second, and it prompted the Gnome serum run. I

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Speaker 1: dithered for a while about choosing this episode as a

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Speaker 1: Saturday classic because it's about a highly contagious disease that

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Speaker 1: was deadly among children, and we are in a pandemic

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Speaker 1: that has seen a big spike in pediatric cases over

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Speaker 1: the last few weeks. But this episode is also about

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Speaker 1: a huge, coordinated, and ultimately successful effort to get an

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Speaker 1: outbreak under control, so ultimately it's a hopeful one. And

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Speaker 1: this episode originally came out on December sevent Welcome to

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Speaker 1: Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello, and Welcome to the five Gas. I'm

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Speaker 1: Tracy Wilson. I'm Holly fry So. Today's episode is a

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Speaker 1: listener request from a whole lot of people, but I'm

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Speaker 1: pretty sure the first person to ask for it since

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Speaker 1: you and I came on the show. Holly was Emily

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Speaker 1: and a dog named Balto became famous for leading a

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Speaker 1: team of sled dogs in Nome, Alaska, in delivering desperately

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Speaker 1: needed life saving medicine to the city, which at that

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Speaker 1: point was completely ice bound. There's a statue of this

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Speaker 1: dog in New York City Central Park and another one

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Speaker 1: in Anchorage near the starting line for the Iditarod. He

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Speaker 1: was the subject of a highly fictionalized animated film that

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Speaker 1: came out in and the dog himself was mounted by

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Speaker 1: a taxi or missed after his death and is now

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Speaker 1: an exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. But

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Speaker 1: Balto was just one of the lead dogs that relayed

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Speaker 1: serum across Alaska. To know. All in all, there were

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Speaker 1: more than twenty mushers with more than twenty teams of dogs,

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Speaker 1: and they ran a six hundred and seventy four mile

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Speaker 1: route which took them nearly five and a half days

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Speaker 1: to finish. And that is the story that we are

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Speaker 1: going to tell today. And as a fair warning, this

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Speaker 1: is it's got some very sad elements. The entire crisis

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Speaker 1: in Nome, Alaska started with the deaths of children from diphtheria.

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Speaker 1: And if this episode were made into a movie, which

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Speaker 1: it has been, as we just said, uh, the the

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Speaker 1: website does the dog died dot com would have the

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Speaker 1: crying puppy because not all of the dogs made it

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Speaker 1: to the end unfortunately. So if those things cause you distress,

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Speaker 1: this is your fair warning. Yeah. When Tracy started researching

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Speaker 1: this episode, she shot me and I am and said,

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Speaker 1: will you be able to handle this? So the answer

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Speaker 1: is hopefully yeah. Well, and because there's so much this

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Speaker 1: this could have been a multi part episode, but it

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Speaker 1: is not. And uh, because there's so much other stuff

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Speaker 1: to talk about as as part of the story. Fortunately,

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Speaker 1: that is not the majority of what we will be

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Speaker 1: talking about today. So we don't hear much about DIP

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Speaker 1: theory nowadays because in most of the world it is

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Speaker 1: prevented through vaccines. World Health Organization member states reported fewer

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Speaker 1: than five thousand cases, although there were certainly some that

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Speaker 1: existed outside that number that just went unreported. Most of

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Speaker 1: these were in developing nations and in places where there's

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Speaker 1: some sort of strain on the health care infrastructure, such

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Speaker 1: as wars or other strife going on that are preventing

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Speaker 1: vaccinations or health care from happening. But this was not

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Speaker 1: the case at all before a vaccine against DIP theory

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Speaker 1: was developed in the nineteen twenties. In nineteen twenty one,

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Speaker 1: more than two hundred thousand people got dip theory and

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Speaker 1: more than fifteen thousand people died of it. In the

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Speaker 1: United States alone and without treatment, the mortality rate for

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Speaker 1: dip theoria was up to fi and it's a terrifying

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Speaker 1: disease that often strikes children under the age of ten.

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Speaker 1: It starts with a sore throat in a fever, just

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Speaker 1: like numerous other relatively harmless illnesses, but as it progresses,

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Speaker 1: dip theoria produces toxins that cause a membrane and sores

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Speaker 1: to develop in the throat, and so the throat slowly

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Speaker 1: closes off until the patient can no longer breathe. This

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Speaker 1: is why the very dreadful nickname of this disease is

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Speaker 1: the strangling Angel of children, and diphtheria also affects other

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Speaker 1: mucous membranes. It's not just the throat, so even when

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Speaker 1: doctors started intibating patients to maintain their airways, sometimes the

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Speaker 1: patients would still die as other parts of their bodies

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Speaker 1: shut down in the wake of the toxin. The first

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Speaker 1: effective treatment for dip theory was antitoxin, which was developed

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Speaker 1: in the eight nineties, and essentially doctors figured out that

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Speaker 1: the blood of animals that had been exposed to dip

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Speaker 1: theoria contained substances that prevented the toxin's effects. Emil von

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Speaker 1: Bearing won the Nobel Prize for this discovery in nineteen

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Speaker 1: o one. In five, when this story takes place, there

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Speaker 1: was already a vaccine for diphtheria in the United States.

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Speaker 1: It was a combination of serum toxin and anti toxin. Usually,

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Speaker 1: children would be given a test called the Ship test

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Speaker 1: to see if they had already been exposed to dip

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Speaker 1: theorius at some point in their past. If not, they'd

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Speaker 1: be injected with a combination of toxin and anti toxin,

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Speaker 1: which gave them immunity for a few years. However, the

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Speaker 1: vaccine had not become widely used. Yeah, like many new

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Speaker 1: major medical developments, it just took a while for it

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Speaker 1: to catch on. And the ship test was a lot

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Speaker 1: like if anyone remembers getting a TV time test. Um.

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Speaker 1: I know a lot of us got them as children,

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Speaker 1: and teachers continue to get them because they're around children.

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Speaker 1: It was a lot like that. They would stay q

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Speaker 1: and if it turned red, then they knew that you

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Speaker 1: had been exposed So now for a little context about Nome, Alaska.

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Speaker 1: The Native Alaska and Upiak people had lived in northern

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Speaker 1: Alaska for thousands of years, and then prospectors from Europe

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Speaker 1: and other parts of North America just flooded to the

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Speaker 1: area during a gold rush in the late eighteen nineties

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Speaker 1: and the town's population just exploded. The promise of gold

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Speaker 1: as far as the eye could see did not turn

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Speaker 1: out to be true, though, so many of these people

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Speaker 1: moved on and left Nome. By the nine twenties, Nomes

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Speaker 1: population was left only a couple of thousand, but those

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Speaker 1: who stayed and lived there built a close knit community.

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Speaker 1: Counting outlying villages and mining camps, there were probably about

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Speaker 1: ten thousand people in that area of Alaska, so it's

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Speaker 1: a pretty wide area we're looking at at this point.

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Speaker 1: Although there were a number of marriages between the newcomers

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Speaker 1: and the Inupiak, in the two communities, things were are

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Speaker 1: largely segregated. In the nineteen twenties, many of the Inupiak

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Speaker 1: made their homes at a camp along a stretch of

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Speaker 1: waterfront that was known as the Sand Spit, and in

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Speaker 1: Gnome had exactly one doctor, and his name was Dr

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Speaker 1: Curtis Welch. He and four nurses staff to hospital that

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Speaker 1: provided care for Gnome and the surrounding population, So all

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Speaker 1: of those people had five healthcare providers total. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: the hospital was the most well equipped in all of

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Speaker 1: northern Alaska. But well equipped in this sentence is extremely relative.

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Speaker 1: The electricity was not particularly reliable, and the hospital didn't

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Speaker 1: have a lab or an incubator for growing cultures, so

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Speaker 1: they couldn't take a culture of a sample to figure

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Speaker 1: out whether anything particular is growing in it. They just

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Speaker 1: did not have the means to do that. And Gnome

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Speaker 1: was also completely ice bound for several months of the year,

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Speaker 1: so once the last supply ship for the season dropped

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Speaker 1: off its cargo, that was it. The It's the end

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Speaker 1: of the the end of the supply line. Anything else

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Speaker 1: would have to come by the mail, which was carried

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Speaker 1: across Alaska by teams of sled dogs. So in the

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Speaker 1: summer of nineteen twenty four, Dr Welch had noticed that

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Speaker 1: the hospital's supply of dip diphtheria anti toxin had expired.

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Speaker 1: He wrote to Juno Alaska to request more of it,

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Speaker 1: but none of it came on the last supply ship.

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Speaker 1: To stop in Gnome before the water froze completely over.

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Speaker 1: Dr Welch hadn't seen a confirmed case of diph theoria

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Speaker 1: and all the time that he had been working in Nome,

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Speaker 1: so he thought it would probably be okay. Unfortunately that

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Speaker 1: changed pretty quickly. But before we get into that part

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Speaker 1: of the story, do you want to take a word

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Speaker 1: from a sponsor, let's do that. In December of Dr

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Speaker 1: Welch treated a child for a sore throat which he

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Speaker 1: thought was probably tomsilitis. And part of this conclusion was

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Speaker 1: because diphtheria is highly highly contagious, and so he would

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Speaker 1: expect that if he saw one case of diphtheria, he

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Speaker 1: would also see more of them. And so since there

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Speaker 1: was only one child who got sick, he did not

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Speaker 1: think diphtheria was the cause. But then more children did

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Speaker 1: get sick, and some of them did not survive. He

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Speaker 1: started to see the membranes and lesions were that were

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Speaker 1: the telltale signs of diphtheria. The first case he was

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Speaker 1: sure of with the diphtheria diagnosis was a three year

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Speaker 1: old named Billy Barnett. Dr Welch was afraid that using

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Speaker 1: expired anti toxin could just make the boy worse, but

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Speaker 1: Billy did die regardless. The next confirmed case of diphtheria

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Speaker 1: he encountered, Dr Weltch did try the anti tooxin, but

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Speaker 1: unfortunately that trial that child died also. And so at

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Speaker 1: this point uh Dr Welsh is realizing that the situation

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Speaker 1: was quite serious. So on January twenty two, he sent

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Speaker 1: this telegram to towns all over Alaska and to Washington,

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Speaker 1: d C. Quote, an epidemic of diphtheria is almost inevitable here.

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Speaker 1: Stop I am in urgent need of one million units

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Speaker 1: of diphtheria anti toxin. Stop mail is only form of transportation.

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Speaker 1: Stop I have made application to Commissioner of Health of

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Speaker 1: the Territories for anti toxin already. He then called the

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Speaker 1: town's leaders together to discuss what to do. They acted

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Speaker 1: immediately to implement a quarantine. All the public gathering places

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Speaker 1: were shut down and anyone who was displaying symptoms of

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Speaker 1: diphtheria was kept at home with a quarantine sign posted

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Speaker 1: on the door, and Dr Welch and his nurses made

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Speaker 1: daily rounds around Nome and through the sand spit. They

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Speaker 1: were tracking new cases, a ministering care where they could,

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Speaker 1: and they were comforting the families of children who had died.

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Speaker 1: Particularly important in this work was head nurse Emily Morgan,

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Speaker 1: who was born in Kansas and had come to Alaska

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Speaker 1: as part of a mission. Even though he was still

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Speaker 1: really worried about its efficacy, Dr Welch did started using

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Speaker 1: his limited supply of expired anti toxin, and he knew

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Speaker 1: that if the outbreak spread at all, they were going

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Speaker 1: to completely run out. So basically the Gnome area was

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Speaker 1: brought to a standstill. On top of the seriousness of

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Speaker 1: the outbreak itself, the nineteen eighteen influenza pandemic was still

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Speaker 1: a very recent memory, and as we talked about in

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Speaker 1: our episode on that pandemic, it had been absolutely devastating

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Speaker 1: to the Alaska Native population. They had no natural immunity

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Speaker 1: to it whatsoever. The Alaska Native population also had no

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Speaker 1: natural immunity at all to diphtheria, so Dr Welch, his staff,

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Speaker 1: and everyone else knew that without effective treatment, the Innupiac

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Speaker 1: population would probably be destroyed. Fortunately, the powers that be

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Speaker 1: also recognized that this was a crisis. Health personnel around

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Speaker 1: Alaska and the Pacific Northwest started gathering up all the

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Speaker 1: anti tip so that they could find Mark Summer, who

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Speaker 1: was the superintendent of the Territorial Board of Health Alaska

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Speaker 1: was not a state yet, concocted a plan to get

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Speaker 1: the anti toxin where it needed to go. They would

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Speaker 1: gather up all the anti toxin and send it to Anchorage, Alaska,

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Speaker 1: and then it would go by train to Nanana, Alaska,

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Speaker 1: and then a musher with a team of dogs would

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Speaker 1: set out from there while another musher left from Nome.

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Speaker 1: They would meet in the town of Nulatto and then

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Speaker 1: hand over the serum and go back the way they came.

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Speaker 1: And these names I looked for pronunciations of they look

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Speaker 1: very obvious how they should be pronounced, and I did

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Speaker 1: not find audio files pronouncing them. So very much apologize

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Speaker 1: if we have gotten any of them wrong. So Leonard's

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Speaker 1: Spaula was an experienced musher and a three time winner

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Speaker 1: of the All Alaska Sweepstakes, which is a long distance

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Speaker 1: dogsled race, and he was selected to go from Nome

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Speaker 1: to Nilatto and back. Governor Scott Bone, who was an

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Speaker 1: appoint it official and not an elected one at this

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Speaker 1: point in Alaska's history, expanded on the original plan by

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Speaker 1: turning the dogs led delivery into a relay using many

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Speaker 1: of the same mushers who carried the mail. The total

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Speaker 1: distance would be the same, but since each musher and

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Speaker 1: his dogs had less distance to cover, they could easily

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Speaker 1: make better time because they could push themselves harder. They

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Speaker 1: worked with Edward Wetzler, who was the postal inspector, to

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Speaker 1: put this plan into place, and throughout all of these

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Speaker 1: preparations and plans, there was an entire second plan that

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Speaker 1: was running in the background, and that was to try

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Speaker 1: to deliver the serum by air. However, air travel in

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Speaker 1: and around Alaska was in its infancy at this point.

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Speaker 1: The only airplanes available were of the open cockpit variety,

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Speaker 1: and they would have to be flown in fifty degrees

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Speaker 1: below zero temperatures in a blizzard. Uh they were water

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Speaker 1: cooled and consequently unreliable in temperatures that were that cold.

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Speaker 1: Some of the people advocating for this place and also

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Speaker 1: wanted to kick start the air industry in Alaska, so

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Speaker 1: they definitely had an agenda behind pushing for the air delivery.

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Speaker 1: And the reason that we're not going to go into

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Speaker 1: all of that part of the story, which is its

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Speaker 1: own little encapsulated drama, is that this particular event that

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Speaker 1: we're talking about is really about the dog race. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: all of the resources that I read kind of had

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Speaker 1: this running parallel tangent of what was happening with the airplanes,

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Speaker 1: and basically there was continual talk about airplanes that did

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00:14:29,040 --> 00:14:33,280
Speaker 1: not work out. So to some all that up before

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Speaker 1: we talk about the actual dogsled relay, Let's take another

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Speaker 1: brief moment for a word from a sponsor. Yes, please.

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Speaker 1: The dogs led relay from Nanana to Gnome became known

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Speaker 1: as the Great Race of Mercy, and it got kind

246
00:14:53,960 --> 00:14:56,960
Speaker 1: of a rolling start when three hundred thousand units of

247
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Speaker 1: serum from the Alaska Railroad Hospital departed Anchorage by train.

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Speaker 1: They were packed in a cylinder and wrapped in a

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Speaker 1: quilt for insulation. Another million units were also on the

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Speaker 1: way from Seattle, but it was going to take a

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Speaker 1: lot longer for them to arrive. So in Casey's numbers

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Speaker 1: sound insane to you, Uh, it sounds like a lot

253
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Speaker 1: when we're talking about millions and three hundred thousands, But

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Speaker 1: a dose, a single dose, actually included thousands of units,

255
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Speaker 1: so it wasn't single unit, single dose. So when we're

256
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Speaker 1: talking about all of these thousands, it's really not enough

257
00:15:31,520 --> 00:15:33,840
Speaker 1: dosage for a whole lot of people. So the weather

258
00:15:33,920 --> 00:15:37,480
Speaker 1: for this relay was horrible. A lot of the running

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00:15:37,520 --> 00:15:41,280
Speaker 1: of the dogs took place in wide out blizzard conditions

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Speaker 1: with temperatures well below fifty degrees below zero. I cannot

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Speaker 1: even imagine how cold that is, knowing how much I

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Speaker 1: hate cold, You can bet I cannot imagine it either. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I feel like the coldest I have personally experienced has

264
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Speaker 1: been like in the teams below zero, and that was

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00:16:03,760 --> 00:16:07,160
Speaker 1: just a freak occurrence. It hurt me to be outside. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was utter misery the one time I've been in

267
00:16:09,360 --> 00:16:14,720
Speaker 1: that as well. So I can't imagine below Yeah. So

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00:16:15,000 --> 00:16:17,600
Speaker 1: a lot of the route was marked. It ran along

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Speaker 1: the Iditarod Trail, which was a marked and used trail. Uh.

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Speaker 1: There were roadhouses that had been built by the Northern

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Speaker 1: Commercial Company along the way where people could rest and

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00:16:27,880 --> 00:16:31,640
Speaker 1: take shelter the going. The going was still going to

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00:16:31,680 --> 00:16:34,640
Speaker 1: be extremely rough for all of the men and the

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00:16:34,720 --> 00:16:39,120
Speaker 1: dogs involved. Uh Musha. William Shannon, also known as Wild Bill,

275
00:16:39,400 --> 00:16:42,240
Speaker 1: and his lead dog Blackie met the train in Nanana

276
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Speaker 1: and they hit the trail at nine pm on January

277
00:16:47,400 --> 00:16:50,680
Speaker 1: The going was immediately rough. There's a rule of thumb

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00:16:50,720 --> 00:16:53,119
Speaker 1: called the rule of forties in the world of sleddogs,

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00:16:53,560 --> 00:16:55,760
Speaker 1: and that rule is that you don't run a dog

280
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Speaker 1: team when it's colder than forty below or warmer than

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00:16:59,360 --> 00:17:04,600
Speaker 1: forty above of zero fahrenheit. The temperature as wild Bill

282
00:17:04,720 --> 00:17:08,080
Speaker 1: left the train station was at least fifty below, but

283
00:17:08,320 --> 00:17:11,760
Speaker 1: it really had no other choice. He had to carry

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00:17:11,800 --> 00:17:14,720
Speaker 1: the serum fifty two miles to tal Avanna, where he

285
00:17:14,760 --> 00:17:17,800
Speaker 1: would pass it off to another musher named Edgar Kellen's.

286
00:17:18,480 --> 00:17:21,879
Speaker 1: On his way to tal Havanna, wild Bill realized that

287
00:17:21,920 --> 00:17:25,240
Speaker 1: he was getting hypothermia. He started taking steps to try

288
00:17:25,280 --> 00:17:27,639
Speaker 1: to keep himself warm. He was moving his arms around,

289
00:17:27,680 --> 00:17:30,440
Speaker 1: he was jogging beside the dog sled, doing anything he

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00:17:30,480 --> 00:17:32,600
Speaker 1: could think of to try to keep his body temperature up.

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00:17:33,200 --> 00:17:35,640
Speaker 1: But by the time he got to a roadhouse in Minto,

292
00:17:35,920 --> 00:17:38,680
Speaker 1: his face had become so frost bitten that his skin

293
00:17:38,800 --> 00:17:41,439
Speaker 1: had turned black, and four of his dogs had blood

294
00:17:41,440 --> 00:17:44,920
Speaker 1: around their mouths. He thought himself out, and he thought

295
00:17:44,920 --> 00:17:48,000
Speaker 1: the serum by the fire. It was a comparatively warm

296
00:17:48,080 --> 00:17:51,880
Speaker 1: fifties degrees in the roadhouse, and he tried to get

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00:17:51,920 --> 00:17:56,040
Speaker 1: everything working again before moving on. I will pause to say,

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Speaker 1: as I was reading an account of this, I was

299
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Speaker 1: sort of imagining him walking into a place that's what

300
00:18:03,080 --> 00:18:06,560
Speaker 1: I think of is warm, which is like between sixty

301
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Speaker 1: eight and seventy two degrees in the winter, and so

302
00:18:10,080 --> 00:18:12,720
Speaker 1: learning that this warm place he had gotten to take

303
00:18:12,760 --> 00:18:15,360
Speaker 1: refuge was only fifty degrees kind of made my heart

304
00:18:15,440 --> 00:18:20,159
Speaker 1: hurt a little bit. So before a whild Bill continued

305
00:18:20,200 --> 00:18:22,720
Speaker 1: on on his leg of the relay, he had to

306
00:18:22,800 --> 00:18:26,400
Speaker 1: unhook three of his dogs from the harnesses they were

307
00:18:26,440 --> 00:18:30,359
Speaker 1: suffering from a condition that mushers called lung scorching, which

308
00:18:30,400 --> 00:18:32,840
Speaker 1: actually has more to do with the effect of really

309
00:18:32,880 --> 00:18:36,120
Speaker 1: cold air on their lung tissue, and he left them

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00:18:36,119 --> 00:18:40,040
Speaker 1: behind to return for them later, but unfortunately they didn't survive.

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Speaker 1: At about the same time, Leonard Suppala and his lead

312
00:18:44,680 --> 00:18:46,920
Speaker 1: dog Togo left no and they were on route to

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Speaker 1: the rendezvous point to pick up the serum. His planned

314
00:18:50,240 --> 00:18:53,320
Speaker 1: route was around three fifteen miles each way, and it

315
00:18:53,359 --> 00:18:55,720
Speaker 1: included one of the most dangerous parts of the route,

316
00:18:56,040 --> 00:18:59,280
Speaker 1: the nor Norton Sound. He set off with his dogs

317
00:18:59,640 --> 00:19:01,760
Speaker 1: Harna sing more than he needed so he could leave

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00:19:01,840 --> 00:19:04,680
Speaker 1: some at roadhouses along the way so that he could

319
00:19:04,680 --> 00:19:08,280
Speaker 1: trade them out on the way back. Norton Sound was

320
00:19:08,359 --> 00:19:10,800
Speaker 1: for the most part frozen over at this point, but

321
00:19:10,920 --> 00:19:14,000
Speaker 1: the currents under the ice meant that the surface of

322
00:19:14,000 --> 00:19:18,600
Speaker 1: the sound was constantly shifting and rebuilding itself. Entire chunks

323
00:19:18,640 --> 00:19:21,320
Speaker 1: of the sound could break off and float away, and

324
00:19:21,680 --> 00:19:26,000
Speaker 1: big chasms in the ice could open unexpectedly. So Paula

325
00:19:26,040 --> 00:19:29,520
Speaker 1: had to cross over this twice, once in each direction.

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00:19:29,840 --> 00:19:32,160
Speaker 1: I mean he could if he really wanted to go

327
00:19:32,240 --> 00:19:34,320
Speaker 1: around parts of it, but that was going to add

328
00:19:34,320 --> 00:19:38,720
Speaker 1: a significant amount of time to the journey. Meanwhile, the

329
00:19:38,800 --> 00:19:42,320
Speaker 1: inbound serum shipment continued to pass from musher to musher,

330
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Speaker 1: some of them completing their leg of the journey more

331
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Speaker 1: easily than others. While all of this was happening, things

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Speaker 1: in Nome got a lot worse. The disease was just

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00:19:52,560 --> 00:19:57,720
Speaker 1: spreading really quickly. People were extremely ill and alarmingly. One

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00:19:57,760 --> 00:19:59,920
Speaker 1: of the new cases was someone who had been wor

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Speaker 1: working in a neighboring town shortly before she developed symptoms.

336
00:20:03,760 --> 00:20:07,360
Speaker 1: So Dr Welch was terrified that the outbreak was going

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00:20:07,440 --> 00:20:12,720
Speaker 1: to spread beyond Gnome and into the outlying community. Because

338
00:20:12,760 --> 00:20:15,800
Speaker 1: of the worsening conditions in Nome, there was another change

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00:20:15,840 --> 00:20:18,320
Speaker 1: of plans, which was the addition of more mushers to

340
00:20:18,359 --> 00:20:20,720
Speaker 1: the relay in the hopes that they would be able

341
00:20:20,760 --> 00:20:23,399
Speaker 1: to get the serum to Nome just a little bit faster.

342
00:20:24,119 --> 00:20:26,760
Speaker 1: The trouble was there was no way to reach so Paula.

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00:20:27,119 --> 00:20:29,520
Speaker 1: Much of his route didn't go past roadhouses that were

344
00:20:29,520 --> 00:20:33,240
Speaker 1: equipped with telegraphs or telephones, so everyone just had to

345
00:20:33,320 --> 00:20:36,040
Speaker 1: hope that someone would be able to flag him down

346
00:20:36,200 --> 00:20:41,800
Speaker 1: at the handoff point. And meanwhile, the relay continued. On

347
00:20:41,840 --> 00:20:45,480
Speaker 1: its third day, Charlie Evans around it arrived at his

348
00:20:45,600 --> 00:20:48,720
Speaker 1: rendezvous point with two of his dogs dead in the basket.

349
00:20:48,840 --> 00:20:52,800
Speaker 1: They had both died of exposure. So Paula found musher

350
00:20:52,840 --> 00:20:55,720
Speaker 1: Henry Ivanov not long after he made his first crossing

351
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Speaker 1: of the Norton Sound. Ivanofs dogs were fighting after having

352
00:20:59,119 --> 00:21:02,040
Speaker 1: gotten wind of a dear and at first Spaula thought

353
00:21:02,119 --> 00:21:04,600
Speaker 1: he was just another musher. He didn't think that he

354
00:21:04,640 --> 00:21:07,640
Speaker 1: had time to stop and help. As he was racing by,

355
00:21:08,040 --> 00:21:13,120
Speaker 1: Ivanof yelled that he had the serum. Fortunately, Sopaula heard him.

356
00:21:13,200 --> 00:21:16,879
Speaker 1: He stopped his team, He turned them around, loaded the

357
00:21:16,920 --> 00:21:20,040
Speaker 1: serum onto his sled, and after learning that his plan

358
00:21:20,200 --> 00:21:22,320
Speaker 1: was no longer to go all the way back to Nome,

359
00:21:22,440 --> 00:21:25,679
Speaker 1: but to hand his cargo off to other measures. He

360
00:21:25,880 --> 00:21:29,960
Speaker 1: continued the relay to Nome without otherwise stopping to take

361
00:21:30,080 --> 00:21:33,760
Speaker 1: much of her breath there. So Paula handed the serum

362
00:21:33,800 --> 00:21:37,760
Speaker 1: off to Charlie Olsen in Golovin in Bluff Olson handed

363
00:21:37,760 --> 00:21:40,919
Speaker 1: it off to Gunner Cousin, who whose lead dog was Balto,

364
00:21:41,080 --> 00:21:44,560
Speaker 1: the famous name that we've all heard, Balto was actually

365
00:21:44,560 --> 00:21:47,520
Speaker 1: one of Leonard's to Paula's dog, so Paula had loaned

366
00:21:47,520 --> 00:21:50,360
Speaker 1: some of his dogs to Cosson, although he had said

367
00:21:50,400 --> 00:21:53,440
Speaker 1: specifically that Balto was not cut out to be a

368
00:21:53,520 --> 00:21:58,000
Speaker 1: lead dog. At this point, the weather had become so

369
00:21:58,040 --> 00:22:01,400
Speaker 1: bad that Dr Welch tried to call halt to the relay.

370
00:22:02,000 --> 00:22:05,080
Speaker 1: The blizzard was causing complete white out conditions and the

371
00:22:05,119 --> 00:22:09,600
Speaker 1: temperature was about seventy degrees below zero, so Cassan put

372
00:22:09,640 --> 00:22:12,679
Speaker 1: off his departure for about three hours. He was hoping

373
00:22:12,680 --> 00:22:15,119
Speaker 1: that the snow would subside and maybe it would warm

374
00:22:15,200 --> 00:22:18,080
Speaker 1: up a little bit, but it didn't, and eventually he

375
00:22:18,119 --> 00:22:19,600
Speaker 1: got to the point that he was like, if I

376
00:22:19,640 --> 00:22:22,719
Speaker 1: don't go now, I'm going to be stranded here and

377
00:22:22,840 --> 00:22:26,359
Speaker 1: not able to make it through, and because of the

378
00:22:26,400 --> 00:22:29,480
Speaker 1: complete white out conditions and drifts that blocked the trail,

379
00:22:30,040 --> 00:22:33,160
Speaker 1: Cassan wound up relying on balto to find the way

380
00:22:33,240 --> 00:22:35,680
Speaker 1: for much of his leg of the relay, and then

381
00:22:35,760 --> 00:22:38,960
Speaker 1: when he reached his handoff point at Solomon, he didn't stop.

382
00:22:40,320 --> 00:22:43,560
Speaker 1: His reasoning for not stopping was that his eyelashes were

383
00:22:43,600 --> 00:22:46,200
Speaker 1: literally frozen shut with all of the snow and ice,

384
00:22:46,680 --> 00:22:49,640
Speaker 1: and he physically could not see that he was at

385
00:22:49,640 --> 00:22:53,000
Speaker 1: the handoff point. He was right, relying completely on balto

386
00:22:53,200 --> 00:22:55,879
Speaker 1: to lead this lead the team of sled dogs in

387
00:22:55,920 --> 00:22:59,680
Speaker 1: these treacherous conditions. Um sled dogs, as I have learned

388
00:22:59,720 --> 00:23:04,080
Speaker 1: from searching this, they're actually pretty amazing creatures. And lead

389
00:23:04,280 --> 00:23:08,719
Speaker 1: sled dogs, Uh. There are amazing, amazing stories of just

390
00:23:08,840 --> 00:23:12,600
Speaker 1: feats of heroism, which is kind of anthropomorphizing, but I

391
00:23:12,600 --> 00:23:14,320
Speaker 1: don't know how it's to describe it on the part

392
00:23:14,359 --> 00:23:18,040
Speaker 1: of lead sled dogs, a sort of taking charge when

393
00:23:18,160 --> 00:23:23,040
Speaker 1: they're they're human riding in the sled. Uh would have

394
00:23:23,119 --> 00:23:28,240
Speaker 1: made a treacherous or deadly decision because I also didn't stop.

395
00:23:28,280 --> 00:23:30,840
Speaker 1: At the next rendezvous point. When he got there, the

396
00:23:30,920 --> 00:23:33,480
Speaker 1: musher who was supposed to take over was asleep, and

397
00:23:33,520 --> 00:23:35,560
Speaker 1: because I thought that it would take longer to wake

398
00:23:35,640 --> 00:23:37,919
Speaker 1: him up and get his dogs into their harnesses than

399
00:23:37,960 --> 00:23:40,600
Speaker 1: it would take for him to just continue on with

400
00:23:40,680 --> 00:23:45,280
Speaker 1: his own tiring team. Later on, when Balso became a

401
00:23:45,320 --> 00:23:48,199
Speaker 1: famous household name, there were people who accused him of

402
00:23:48,240 --> 00:23:51,000
Speaker 1: just having been a glory hound and having bypassed the

403
00:23:51,080 --> 00:23:54,320
Speaker 1: last hand off on purpose. I don't even know how

404
00:23:54,320 --> 00:23:58,040
Speaker 1: to respond to that, like, could you have to be

405
00:23:58,080 --> 00:24:00,200
Speaker 1: a really serious glory hound to put yourself at that

406
00:24:00,280 --> 00:24:03,280
Speaker 1: level of risk? I think the whole thing was nearly

407
00:24:03,320 --> 00:24:05,800
Speaker 1: for not. And on that final leg, the winds were

408
00:24:05,840 --> 00:24:08,600
Speaker 1: so incredibly fierce that at one point they blew the

409
00:24:08,640 --> 00:24:11,840
Speaker 1: sled completely over and the serum was actually knocked out,

410
00:24:12,480 --> 00:24:15,280
Speaker 1: so Cassan's fingers were frost bitten by the time he

411
00:24:15,359 --> 00:24:17,520
Speaker 1: found it and actually was able to get it maneuvered

412
00:24:17,520 --> 00:24:22,359
Speaker 1: back into the sled. Finally, the anti toxin reached Gnome

413
00:24:22,480 --> 00:24:26,960
Speaker 1: on February second, at five o'clock in the morning. Had

414
00:24:27,000 --> 00:24:30,480
Speaker 1: taken more than twenty mushers, including both Alaska natives and

415
00:24:30,560 --> 00:24:33,520
Speaker 1: non natives, and more than a hundred and fifty dogs,

416
00:24:33,560 --> 00:24:36,240
Speaker 1: and they had been running for more than five days

417
00:24:36,240 --> 00:24:40,199
Speaker 1: and seven hours. The normal time for the mail to

418
00:24:40,320 --> 00:24:44,280
Speaker 1: be taken over this route was between fifteen and twenty days.

419
00:24:45,560 --> 00:24:49,600
Speaker 1: The serum was actually frozen when it arrived, but after

420
00:24:49,640 --> 00:24:53,480
Speaker 1: being thought out, it fortunately worked. Dr Welch and his

421
00:24:53,560 --> 00:24:56,399
Speaker 1: nurses started giving the serum to the sickest patients. First.

422
00:24:57,160 --> 00:25:00,440
Speaker 1: Ten percent of those three thousand units were used up

423
00:25:00,560 --> 00:25:06,399
Speaker 1: that first afternoon. A second and slightly less desperate relay

424
00:25:06,520 --> 00:25:09,679
Speaker 1: delivered those other million units of anti toxin later on

425
00:25:09,800 --> 00:25:15,399
Speaker 1: after following the same basic route from Anchorage to nome H.

426
00:25:15,640 --> 00:25:18,280
Speaker 1: In spite of all of that effort to have some

427
00:25:18,400 --> 00:25:22,359
Speaker 1: delivered by air that never worked out, the quarantine in

428
00:25:22,480 --> 00:25:26,480
Speaker 1: nome was lifted on February one. At least six children

429
00:25:26,600 --> 00:25:29,520
Speaker 1: died in the epidemic. The numbers are not exact because

430
00:25:29,600 --> 00:25:32,880
Speaker 1: Dr Welch actually suspected some of the Alaska Native families

431
00:25:32,880 --> 00:25:36,000
Speaker 1: did not report their children's deaths to him. There were

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Speaker 1: at least twenty seven confirmed cases and at least eighty

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00:25:39,200 --> 00:25:43,080
Speaker 1: other people known to have been exposed. Even though Leonard

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Speaker 1: Soapala's dog Togo led a team for the longest part

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00:25:47,480 --> 00:25:50,720
Speaker 1: of the journey and some of really legitimately the most

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00:25:50,840 --> 00:25:55,000
Speaker 1: treacherous miles of the journey, Balto's heroic run into Nome

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00:25:55,080 --> 00:25:58,960
Speaker 1: became famous. Both dogs eventually did die of old age,

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00:25:59,040 --> 00:26:02,000
Speaker 1: and Togo was aly already twelve years old when he

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00:26:02,080 --> 00:26:06,040
Speaker 1: ran the Serum Run. Sometimes people call the Serum Run

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00:26:06,080 --> 00:26:09,280
Speaker 1: the inspiration for the Editorad Dog Sled Race, which is

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00:26:09,720 --> 00:26:13,119
Speaker 1: kind of an oversimplification of the situation. And although the

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00:26:13,119 --> 00:26:15,720
Speaker 1: Serum Run did go from Anchorage to Nome, which is

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00:26:15,760 --> 00:26:19,159
Speaker 1: also where the Iditarod starts and ends, and both the

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00:26:19,200 --> 00:26:22,639
Speaker 1: Serum Run and the Iditarod are tied to the Editorad Trail,

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00:26:22,720 --> 00:26:24,960
Speaker 1: which has existed for more than a hundred years, it's

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00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:29,200
Speaker 1: not entirely accurate. Yeah, dog sled racing was really well

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00:26:29,320 --> 00:26:32,919
Speaker 1: established in Alaska even before the Cerum Run took place.

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Speaker 1: Uh As we said, Leonard Sappala had actually won several

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00:26:37,160 --> 00:26:40,720
Speaker 1: long distance dog sled races. This was a pastime that

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00:26:40,760 --> 00:26:43,320
Speaker 1: already existed and not something that came about because the

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00:26:43,359 --> 00:26:47,920
Speaker 1: ceremon had happened. Later on, in nine five, the Kelly

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00:26:47,960 --> 00:26:51,720
Speaker 1: Act was signed, and this allowed private aviation companies to

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00:26:51,800 --> 00:26:56,320
Speaker 1: bid on mail delivery contracts in Alaska. And before the

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00:26:56,440 --> 00:27:00,200
Speaker 1: Kelly Act, dogs and dog sleds were one credit called

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00:27:00,200 --> 00:27:02,800
Speaker 1: to the Alaskan way of life and to moving people, mail,

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00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:06,040
Speaker 1: and basically anything else in the winter. By the time

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00:27:06,080 --> 00:27:10,920
Speaker 1: the Iditarod started in ninety three, snowmobiles were overtaking dog

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00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:12,800
Speaker 1: sled as a as a way to move around in

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00:27:12,840 --> 00:27:16,760
Speaker 1: the wintertime. So while there are some ties to the ceremonon,

460
00:27:16,880 --> 00:27:20,080
Speaker 1: the Iditarod was also founded in part to preserve that

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00:27:20,119 --> 00:27:22,520
Speaker 1: way of life, the way of life of running with

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00:27:22,560 --> 00:27:27,480
Speaker 1: dog sleds, and to preserve the Iditarod trail itself. Um,

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00:27:27,520 --> 00:27:29,919
Speaker 1: not even just dog sleds. If if you look at

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00:27:29,920 --> 00:27:34,160
Speaker 1: the history of northern Alaska, dogs go all the way

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00:27:34,160 --> 00:27:37,680
Speaker 1: back to the first arrival of humans. They're like, there's

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00:27:37,840 --> 00:27:42,040
Speaker 1: all kinds of study about how humans could not have

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00:27:42,200 --> 00:27:45,119
Speaker 1: survived in that part of Alaska for thousands of years

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00:27:45,760 --> 00:27:48,720
Speaker 1: without dogs to help them, Like, there are so many

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00:27:48,760 --> 00:27:53,320
Speaker 1: incredible dog stories. One of the books that I read

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00:27:53,400 --> 00:27:56,800
Speaker 1: to research this episode is called The Cruelest Miles, The

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00:27:56,840 --> 00:27:59,040
Speaker 1: Heroic Story of Dogs and Men in a Race against

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00:27:59,080 --> 00:28:01,600
Speaker 1: an Epidemic, and I highly recommended in part because of

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00:28:01,640 --> 00:28:04,760
Speaker 1: all these amazing dog stories. Like I was reading it

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00:28:04,840 --> 00:28:07,199
Speaker 1: on the airplane on the way back from Thanksgiving, and

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00:28:07,200 --> 00:28:09,720
Speaker 1: there were times when my jaw would literally drop at

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00:28:09,720 --> 00:28:12,480
Speaker 1: a story of like, then, what happened with a sled dog?

477
00:28:13,080 --> 00:28:16,320
Speaker 1: Most of these stories were ancillary to this specific story.

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00:28:16,440 --> 00:28:19,880
Speaker 1: They were sort of stories of things these particular dogs

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00:28:19,960 --> 00:28:22,760
Speaker 1: had done at other points in their lives, but super incredible.

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00:28:23,200 --> 00:28:25,159
Speaker 1: So I know there's a lot of debate about the

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00:28:25,200 --> 00:28:30,240
Speaker 1: iditar Rod uh as an event, but sled dogs themselves

482
00:28:30,280 --> 00:28:34,679
Speaker 1: are amazing creatures. Um. And there's an I Did It

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00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:37,560
Speaker 1: by two immunization campaign that is now tied to the

484
00:28:37,560 --> 00:28:40,400
Speaker 1: iditar Rod. It's a program that stresses the need for

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00:28:40,480 --> 00:28:43,840
Speaker 1: children to get their childhood immunizations for diseases active theory

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00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:47,000
Speaker 1: by the time they're two years old. So there are

487
00:28:47,000 --> 00:28:51,520
Speaker 1: connections there. But that's a little a little bit oversimplified

488
00:28:51,520 --> 00:28:54,320
Speaker 1: to say we have the iditar Rod because of the

489
00:28:54,360 --> 00:28:57,200
Speaker 1: gnome serum run and much more of a cat person

490
00:28:57,280 --> 00:29:01,160
Speaker 1: than a dog person. But all the dog sled stories,

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00:29:02,040 --> 00:29:04,840
Speaker 1: like all these amazing stories about the heroic acts of

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00:29:04,880 --> 00:29:09,880
Speaker 1: sled dogs made me really happy to read about. I

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00:29:09,960 --> 00:29:12,239
Speaker 1: felt very sad for the dogs who did not make it.

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00:29:12,440 --> 00:29:15,360
Speaker 1: They're incredible animals, they really are. I am a dog

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00:29:15,360 --> 00:29:19,080
Speaker 1: incap person, So this is um. You know, as we said,

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Speaker 1: at the top Tracy warn't me. They're all said, thanks

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00:29:28,160 --> 00:29:30,840
Speaker 1: so much for joining us on this Saturday. Since this

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00:29:30,920 --> 00:29:32,959
Speaker 1: episode is out of the archive, if you heard an

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00:29:32,960 --> 00:29:35,200
Speaker 1: email address or a Facebook U r L or something

500
00:29:35,240 --> 00:29:37,719
Speaker 1: similar over the course of the show, that could be

501
00:29:37,760 --> 00:29:42,560
Speaker 1: obsolete now. Our current email address is History Podcast at

502
00:29:42,560 --> 00:29:46,080
Speaker 1: i heart radio dot com. Our old hell stuff works

503
00:29:46,080 --> 00:29:49,160
Speaker 1: email address no longer works, and you can find us

504
00:29:49,200 --> 00:29:52,400
Speaker 1: all over social media at missed in History. And you

505
00:29:52,440 --> 00:29:56,080
Speaker 1: can subscribe to our show on Apple podcasts, Google podcast,

506
00:29:56,200 --> 00:29:58,800
Speaker 1: the I heart Radio app, and wherever else you listen

507
00:29:58,840 --> 00:30:04,560
Speaker 1: to podcasts. M Stuff You Missed in History Class is

508
00:30:04,560 --> 00:30:07,719
Speaker 1: a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from

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00:30:07,760 --> 00:30:11,120
Speaker 1: I heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcasts,

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00:30:11,240 --> 00:30:14,280
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H