How It Began
In February of 1925, there was an outbreak of diphtheria in Nome. The village was stranded with no medication and they stood to lose many lives. There was serum (medication) in Fairbanks but nobody could figure out how to get it through to Nome. The trip was too dangerous for an airplane to attempt and the train would only be able to take the serum part way. Finally, it was decided that the train would carry the serum as far as Nenana, and from there, 20 mushers and their dog teams would carry it to Nome. The dog teams would need to cover a distance of 674 miles. All of the towns along the proposed trail put their dogs together into the best team possible and picked the best musher from their town drive the team. When the last musher arrived with the serum in Nome, the total elapsed time was 127.5 hours, about one week It was a dangerous journey and each and every driver involved was a hero.
The most famous musher in the relay was Leonhard Seppala. He set out with his team, led by Togo, planning to run 91 miles to the next hand-off. When he arrived, there was no musher to meet him there. He had to continue on in the bitter cold (-30 degrees Fahrenheit) across the windy Norton Sound. When he was finally relieved, his dogs had run 260 miles. While the most well known dog of the relay is Balto, leader of the last team that ended the relay in Nome, Togo was the bravest, toughest dog in the relay. He pulled the team through the worst of conditions and saved many lives in the process.
Today, We reinact the Serum Run as the Iditarod, a long-distance sled-dog race.
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