Serbian Dog – The Best Dog Ever

This is a true story. The year was 1925. This incident happened in an isolated Alaskan village of Nome. In those days, to travel from one town to another they used a set of dogs and a man would stand at the end of the set of dogs. Or a single horse was used for travel.

In Nome, small children were affected with Diphtheria (a pandemic). Fortunately there was serum for this disease in another town Fair Banks.

The town council decided to use multiple sled dog teams to relay the medicine across the treacherous frozen land. People used to travel with sled dogs for maybe 7-8 miles maximum.

In 1925, in response to an epidemic, the first batch of 300 units of diphtheria serum was delivered by train from Anchorage to Nenana, Alaska, where it was picked up by the first of twenty mushers and more than 100 dogs who relayed the serum a total of 674 miles to Nome.

20 sled teams participated in the 1925 serum relay. 19 teams ran an average of 31 miles each. 1 team ran 264 miles. The head of the dogs team was called Togo, and there were 6 other dogs in the team. Seppala is the man who trained the dogs.

Togo and Seppala traveled 264 miles from Nome in three days, and picked up the serum in Shaktoolik on January 31. The temperature was estimated at −30 °F (−34 °C), and the gale force winds causing a wind chill of −85 °F.

The return trip crossed the exposed open ice of the Norton Sound (open ice area). The night and a ground blizzard prevented Seppala from being able to see the path but Togo navigated to the roadhouse at Isaac’s Point (rest house) on the shore by 8 PM preventing certain death to his team. After traveling 84 miles in one day, the team slept for six hours before continuing at 2 AM.

Before the night the temperature dropped to −40 °F, and the wind increased to 65 mi/h. The team ran across the ice, which was breaking up and becoming water, while following the shoreline. They returned to shore to cross Little McKinley Mountain, climbing 5,000 feet. After descending to the next roadhouse (rest house) in Golovin, Seppala passed the serum to Charlie Olsen (another team), who in turn would pass it to Gunnar Kaasen(another team) and Balto (another team).

The small children were given the medicine and they survived.

The head dog Togo had the heart of the survivor, he was a Siberian sled-dog known & valued for Intelligence, Stamina and Courage with an uncommon bond with humans.

A statue was erected in New York’s Central Park commemorating the serum run of 1925.

This is a true story and it was covered in Times magazine article in 2011. Time magazine named the Dog Togo best animal ever.
Also a movie was directed by Ericson Core and the name of the movie is Togo.

Read the time magazine article here.