Balto and Togo: the true story of the 1925 serum run to Nome

On the night of 27 January 1925, a Norwegian musher named Leonhard Seppala turned his lead dog into a whiteout on Norton Sound and trusted him to find ice solid enough to cross. The temperature was around minus 40. The dog's name was Togo. He was twelve years old, well past the age most sled dogs are retired from hard running, and he had already covered more than 400 kilometres of the relay before that crossing. The serum run to Nome is one of the most documented dog-and-human stories on record, and it is also one of the most misread.

Nome, in western Alaska, had no road connection to the rest of the United States. In winter, its small harbour froze and its airstrip was unusable. When the town's doctor, Curtis Welch, confirmed a diphtheria outbreak in late January 1925, the nearest supply of antitoxin was in Anchorage, roughly 1,600 kilometres away. A train could carry it as far as Nenana. After that, the only option was the Iditarod Trail, a mail and supply route used by dog sled teams. Territorial Governor Scott Bone authorised a relay of twenty mushers and around 150 dogs. The serum had to move 1,085 kilometres in conditions that had already grounded the territory's two functional aircraft.


Seppala and Togo's team took the longest single leg of the relay: 261 kilometres, including the crossing of Norton Sound. Seppala had set out from Nome before the relay was formally organised, heading toward the serum, which meant his team ran into the storm rather than with it. The Norton Sound crossing cut the distance significantly but put the team on sea ice in deteriorating weather. Togo led the crossing, found the route, and held the team together when the ice began to shift. By the time Seppala handed the serum to the next musher, his team had run more ground under worse conditions than any other in the relay. Togo was a Siberian Husky, bred by Seppala from Alaskan working stock, and he had been running lead for Seppala since he was a young dog. He was never bred after the run; Seppala considered him too valuable to risk in whelping. Togo died in 1929. His preserved body is on display at the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race headquarters in Wasilla, Alaska.


The final leg into Nome, 85 kilometres, was run by musher Gunnar Kaasen with Balto as lead dog. Kaasen's team arrived in Nome at 05:30 on 2 February 1925, completing the relay in just under six days. The serum was intact. The outbreak was contained; fewer than seven people died. Balto was also a Siberian Husky, owned by Seppala but driven by Kaasen. Because Kaasen's team crossed the finish line, they were the ones waiting when the press arrived. A bronze statue of Balto was installed in Central Park, New York, later that year. It still stands. Balto lived until 1933; his preserved body is at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. The statue and the 1995 animated film cemented his name in public memory. Kaasen, in interviews at the time, was consistent: Togo had run the harder journey. Seppala said the same, more than once, for the rest of his life.

Twenty mushers handed the serum along a chain that ran through some of the most hostile terrain in North America. Several teams ran in temperatures below minus 50 Celsius. One musher, Charlie Evans, ran part of his leg with two of his dogs dying from the cold, finished the handoff, and turned back. The antitoxin itself was partially frozen when it arrived and had to be carefully thawed before use. The relay was not a race between individuals. It was a coordinated logistics operation, and it worked because the territorial government, the relay organisers, and every musher on the chain held their part. The dogs that are remembered by name are the lead dogs, because lead dogs make decisions. The teams behind them made those decisions possible.

The 1925 serum run is one of the few working-dog stories with a complete documentary record: names, legs, distances, temperatures, and times are all preserved in territorial archives and contemporary newspaper accounts. Nothing in the story needs embellishment, which is exactly why embellishment has been so persistent. Balto is not a fraud. He ran a real leg in real conditions and his team delivered the serum. Togo is not a forgotten hero so much as a casualty of timing: he finished his leg before the cameras were there. Both dogs did what sled dogs are built to do, under the direction of mushers who knew the trail and trusted their leads. The serum run is remembered as a story about animals. It holds up better as a story about what a working partnership between a dog and a person can carry across impossible ground.