55 they had about twenty confirmed cases: Medical Reports.
56 to travel the 674 miles: Early records citing the distance of the mail trail vary: 674 is the generally accepted figure. These trails in Alaska are not permanent, and maintaining them is a continual fight against nature. Encroaching rivers and erosion continually take away and add miles to an impermanent route. Bends in the Tanana River, for instance, have moved a distance of over five miles in this past century alone.
56 Mark Summers had a plan: Summers-Wolf correspondence. Mark Summers's daughter also recalls the relationship her father and family had with the Seppalas.
56 "King of the Trail": The term appears to have been used first in reference to Alaska's ever important mail drivers. With the advent of dog racing on those same working trails, Seppala was anointed "King of the Trail." Correspondence and telegrams from the driver himself show he often signed himself thus.
56 The mayor had long been an advocate: "Nomeites Concerned," Nome Nugget, January 24, 1925.
57 "Serious epidemic of diphtheria": Maynard to Sutherland, January 23, 1925, reprinted in "Telegraphic," Nome Nugget, January 31, 1925.
Chapter Four: Gone to the Dogs
5o Leonhard Seppala—personal details: Elizabeth Ricker with Leon-hard Seppala, Seppala: Alaskan Dog Driver (Boston: Little, Brown, 1930); Raymond Thompson, Seppala's Saga of the Sled Dog, 2 vols. (Lynnwood, WA: 1977); and Ungermann's Race to Nome.
60 He was something of a show-off: Author's interview with Joe Walsh.
60 So much was at stake: Leonhard Seppala, interview by the Boston Herald, February 20, 1927, Leonhard Seppala Collection, Rasmuson.
61 "The dogs always came first": Charlotte Widrig, "The Golden Days of Dog-Sled Racing," Seattle Times, March 28, 1954.
63 "The birchwood runners of my sled": Leonhard Seppala, with Raymond Thompson, "I Met My First Dog Team 60 Years Ago," Alaska Sportsman (May 1961).
63 "Every time the telephone rang": Ricker, Alaskan Dog Driver, 290.
64 "like a reindeer": Authors' interview with Joe Walsh.
65 "a piece of blubber": Waldemar Bogoras, The Chukchee, Publications of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, vol. 7, 1904-09, American Museum of Natural History Research Library. Bogoras provides one of the more reliable accounts of the dogs of Siberia.
66 William Goosak heard about dogs: Coppinger, World of Sled Dogs, 86.
66 "Siberian rats": Nome residents at the time also referred to the Siberians as "fuzzy wuzzy lap dogs" or simply as "rats." See also John Douglas Tanner, Jr., Alaska Trails — Siberian Dogs (Wheat Ridge, CO: Hoflin Publishing, 1986), and Ungermann, Race to Nome, 59.
67 would have broken the bank in Nome: Earl and Natalie Norris, "A Short Alaskan History of the Siberian Husky," in Pamela Thomas, Ann Stead, and Nancy Wolfe, eds., The Siberian Husky 3rd edn. (Elkhorn, WI: International Siberian Husky Club, 1994), 42.
67 "howling from every porthole": Tanner, Alaska Trails, 18. 67 "I did not win the race": O. A. Braafladt, "Men of Iron, Dogs of Speed," Alaska Sportsman (December 1937).
67 "There seems to be almost no limit": Letter by Seppala, Seppala Archives, International Siberian Husky Club, Wisconsin.
68 "I literally fell in love with them": Leonhard Seppala, with Raymond Thompson, "Nome Dog Races," Alaska Sportsman (July 1961).
68 or "raving mad": Willoughby, Gentlemen Unafraid, 85.
68 "It was truly a land": Seppala, "Nome Dog Races," Alaska Sportsman (July 1961). 68 dispatches from the racecourse: Reprinted in Allan, Gold, 209.
69 "They told me I came in": Ibid., 217.
70 He felt nervous and excited: Seppala, "Nome Dog Races," Alaska Sportsman. (July 1961).
70 "By the time we were making": Ibid.
70 "the more I thought it over the less": Ricker, Alaskan Dog Driver, 209. An in-depth description of Seppala's first sweepstake race also appears in Seppala, "Nome Dog Races," and Thompson's Seppala's Saga.
70 "I don't know what": "Renowned Dog Musher of All Alaska Sweepstake Races Talks at College," Farthest-North Collegian, December 1, 1933-
71 "their simple, canine faith": Thompson, Seppala's Saga, 1:49.
71 "I felt like a loaded gun": Leonhard Seppala, with Raymond Thompson, "I Won the Nome Sweepstakes," Alaska Sportsman (November 1961).
72 "smiled hack at me enigmatically": Ricker, Alaskan Dog Driver, 219.
72 "could see a team way back": Ibid., 220.
73 "Seppala's team is all in": Ibid., 223.
74 "They were dragging along slowly": Ibid., 224.
75 "Scotty came dashing after me": Ibid., 229.
75 "That man is super-human": "Seppala Triumph Attributed to Hypnotism; Just 'Clucked' and His Dogs Raced to Victory," The New York Times, February 14, 1927. The competitor's name has been reported as Si Mason or Hiram Mason of New Hampshire.
76 "I am proud of my racing trophies": Seppala Archives, International Siberian Husky Club.
76 "inseparably linked": Foreword by Frank Dufresne, letter dated February 15, 1927, in Elizabeth Ricker, Togo's Fireside Reflections (Lewiston, ME: Lewiston Journal Printshop, 1928).
76 "Go to it": Ibid.
76 "with a sense of security": Ricker, Alaskan Dog Driver, 280.
Chapter Five: Flying Machines
79 "Could aviator at Fairbanks put plane": Sutherland to Thompson, January 26, 1925, reprinted in Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, same date. This issue of the News-Miner also gives a full account of Thompson's actions that morning, as well as those of the mechanic and Roy Darling.
80 keep up their "flattened spirits": Mary Lee Cadwell Davis, We Are All Alaskans (Boston: W. A. Wilde Co., 1931), 132.
80 "Lost His Chocolate Drop": Ibid., 153. Also quoted as "Lost His Little Chocolate Drop."
81 "drinking homebrew": Jean Clark Potter, The Flying North (New York: Macmillan, 1947), 37. Potter writes in depth about Fairbanks in the 1920s and the first Alaskan bush pilots. Her work includes the role W. F. Thompson played in starting an aviation company in the town.
82 "crossroads city of the world": Ibid., 35 v
83 "to try it on for size": Robert Stevens, Alaskan Aviation History, 2 vols. (Des Moines, WA: Polynyas Press, 1990), 1:37.
84 "cheerful, forceful, active": Military Records of Roy Andrew Darling, National Archives, RG 125, Records of the Judge Advocate General of the Navy, Navy Examining Boards 1890-1941. The records also describe Darling's injuries.
84 the "broken flyer": Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, January 26, 1925.
85 "had to go hanging onto the tail": Ibid.
86 "hit the air for Nome, rain or shine": Ibid.
86 "The atmosphere is not right": Ibid.
87 "be of good cheer": Thompson to Nome Nugget, January 26, 1925, reprinted in "Telegraphic," Nome Nugget, January 31, 1925.
87 "I am allowing the dust of Washington": Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, July 28, 1924.
88 "Health Department will take": Sutherland to Maynard, January 26, 1925, "Telegraphic," Nome Nugget, January 31, 1925.
89 Beeson was a competent: Paul Beeson, "Rushing the Serum to the Rescue: A Long House Call," Resident & Staff Physician (April 1990).
90 the conductor, Frank Knight: Ungermann, Race to Nome, 52-53.
90 "Appreciate your prompt action": Bone to Beeson, January 27, 1925, Telegram, National Archives.
90 governor had a kind and warm way about him: Baltimore Sun, August 1, 1923.
92 "unfit for habitation": E. A. Steece, Supervising Architect, Treasury Department to Washington, Report, July 7, 1924, Alaska State Archives, Territorial Governor's Office, General Correspondence.
92 "It will not be long": Claus-M. Naske, An Interpretative History of Alaska Statehood (Anchorage: Alaska Northwest Publishing Co., 1973), 49.
92 "interlocked, overlapped, cumbersome": Scott C. Bone, "Alaska from the Inside," Saturday Evening Post, August 8, 1925, Daniel Sutherland Papers, Rasmuson. In his article, Bone was reiterating the words of former Secretary of Interior Franklin K. Lane.
92 "No one understands Alaska": Scott C. Bone, "The Land That Uncle Sam Bought and Then Forgot," Review of Reviews (April 1922), Daniel Sutherland Papers, Rasmuson. 92 the serum could get bogged down: Bone, "Alaska from the Inside," Saturday Evening Post, August 8, 1925.
94 "an almost continuous succession": "Admiral Watson Here After One Stormy Voyage," Alaska Daily Empire, January 26, 1925. The paper also gives specifics about the cold weather in the Interior.
94 "shaken up by the rough passage": Ibid.
94 "rolled like an old-fashioned": Phoebe West, "I Remember Nome," Alaska Sportsman (April 1962).
95 it "came within the rays of the bonfire": Potter, Flying North, 41. Details of Eielson's flight appear in the pilot's report, sent to the Second Assistant Postmaster General, Colonel Paul Henderson of the U.S. Post Office in charge of the Air Mail Service, William Mitchell Papers, microfilm, Rasmuson Library. See also Carl Benjamin Eielson, "Aeroplaning in Alaska," Daniel Sutherland Papers, Rasmuson.
95 "We found him grinning": Barrett Willoughby, Alaskans All (Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1933), 107.
96 President Calvin Coolidge: "Eielson Tells of His Experience," Alaska Weekly, April 11, 1924.
96 "There are many things which must": Potter, Flying North, 43.
96 "lighthouses in the sky": Cecil Roseberry, The Challenging Skies (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1966), 35.
97 Wien "jumped off": Potter, Flying North, 122.
98 "flying inside a milk bottle": Ibid., 66. The pilot was Joe Crosson. 98 "Airplanes can't fly into 60 mph winds": Ira Harkey, "Pioneer Bush Pilot: The Story of Noel Wien," Alaska Magazine, part 2 (December 1975). Excerpted from Harkey, Pioneer Bush Pilot: The Story of Noel Wien (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1974).
98 number of forced landings dropped: Herschel Smith, A History of Aircraft Piston Engines (Manhattan, KS: Sunflower University Press, 1986).
99 "reconnoitered and explored": Roseberry, Challenging Skies, 281.
100 In his opinion, the equipment was inadequate: Bone's concerns about a flight are evident in several of the telegrams he wrote to Washington.
101 "Nature has many tricks": Jack London, "The White Silence," Northland Stories (New York: Penguin Books, 1997), 3.
102 "To see the excitement": Gold Rush Centennial Task Force, State of Alaska, "Gold Rush Stories: The Mail Must Go Through," 1999; www.library.state.ak.us/goldrush/stories/mail.htm (March 2001).
103 "You'd have to be on time": Pete Curran, Jr., interview by Tom Beck, transcript 4, August 1980, Iditarod Trail Project Oral History Program, Bureau of Land Management, Rasmuson.
103 "There were days the poor dogs": Bill McCarty, interview by Tom Beck, transcript 13, September 1980, ibid. The quotation appears in the transcript as: "I remember the days the poor dogs, they hated to go, going against—up river against the head wind, cold. I had to work on dogs' feet, putting moccasins on dogs. When it was that cold, 50 or 60 below...they didn't like it."
104 "Them feet and me are goin' ": Sherry Simpson, "Heroes of the Mail Trail," Alaska Magazine (February 1996).
1o5 "I called to the man": William Mitchell, The Opening of Alaska: 1901-1903, William Mitchell Papers, microfilm, 45, Rasmuson.
1o5 "Please engage relay dog teams": Bone to Wetzler, January 26, 1925, National Archives.
106 "Inspector Wetzler instructed": Bone to Welch, January 26, 1925, National Archives.
106 to seeing "the big city": Yukon-Koyukuk School District of Alaska, Edgar Kallands: A Biography (Fairbanks: Spirit Mountain Press, 1982), 45. There has been some question as to which town Kallands transported the serum. Some early accounts put his relay leg from Nine Mile Cabin to Kokrines. However, in his biography Kallands said he took the serum from Shannon and traveled to Manley Hot Springs. Several newspaper accounts at the time also reported that Kallands traveled between Tolovana and Manley.
106 Harry Pitka: Ungermann, Race to Nome, 76. Ungermann provides a list of the serum run drivers, as do several telegrams in the National Archives.
107 "Governor Bone has evidently": Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, January 27, 1925.
107 "Woe unto the public official": "William Forepaugh," manuscript, n.d., John Clark Collection, Rasmuson.
107 "Fairbanks could help Nome": Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, January 28, 1925.
Chapter Six: Hunters of the North
This chapter was partly inspired by the many works of two of the great arctic anthropologists, Vilhjalmur Stefansson and Richard K. Nelson. Of particular interest were Stefansson's The Friendly Arctic (New York: Macmillan, 1943) and Hunters of the Great North (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1922); and Nelson's Hunters of the Northern Forest (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1973) and Hunters of the Northern Ice (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1969).
Private letters and unpublished manuscripts of missionaries from the 1900s whose lives were devoted to the Natives of Alaska, most notably Father Lafortune in service of the Eskimos of Seward Peninsula and Father Jette in service of the Athabaskans of the Interior were invaluable (Alaska Mission Collection, UAF).
The Smithsonian ethnologist Edward William Nelson, in his study, Eskimos About Bering Strait (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1983, first published 1899), provides an invaluable inventory of their material culture. Crossroads of Continents: Cultures of Siberia and Alaska, ed. William W. Fitzhugh and Aron Cromwell (Washington, D.C., & London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988), was also useful, particularly the essays on "Maritime Economies of the North Pacific Rim" by Jean-Loup Rousselot, William W. Fitzhugh, and Aron Cromwell, and "Needles and Animals: Women's Magic" by Valerie Chaussonnet.
Anthropologist Wendell H. Oswalt's fascinating Eskimos and Explorers (Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1999) paints a cultural portrait of the Eskimos at the moment of contact with Europeans; Dorothy Jean Ray's portrait of Eskimos of the Bering Strait region right up to the most cataclysmic impact of them all, the 1900 discovery of gold in Nome, helped fill in the picture. Articles published in the journal Arctic Anthropology, and the many histories of dogs and their evolution—as well as continuing research on the subject by academics on the Internet—helped to trace the evidence of dog traction and the earliest uses of dog sledding.
Chapter Seven: The "Rule of the 40s"
137 just shy of 9:00 P.M.: Wetzler to Bone, January 27, 1925, Telegram, National Archives. The telegram puts Shannon's departure time from Nenana at 9:00 p.m.
138 details on Shannon before the run: Churchill Fisher, "Healy Storekeeper," Alaska Sportsman (November 1942); Bill Shannon, interview by Seward Daily Gateway, March 7, 1925; Shannon interview by Tacoma News Tribune, n.d., Seppala Collection, Rasmuson; Ungermann, Race to Nome, 60-62. 139 the "rule of the 40s": Will Forsberg, "Keeping Your Dogs Healthy in Cold Weather," Mushing Magazine (January-February 1997).
139 "Traveling at 50 below": Hudson Stuck, Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled: A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska (Lincoln & London: University of Nebraska Press, 1988), 14.
140 "a lost glove means a lost hand": E. D. Stokes, "The Race for Life," Public Health Reports (May-June 1996).
141 "a sound as of someone pounding": Hansen, Tundra, 138.
143 "Hell, Wetz": Bill Shannon, interview by Tacoma News Tribune, n.d., Seppala Collection, Rasmuson. In his interviews with the press, Shannon spoke in detail about his run, providing details on the weather and the trail as well his and the dogs' condition.
145 "[They] broke through every step": Scott, Tracks Across Alaska (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1990), 96.
146 "A man is only as good as his dogs": Hansen, Tundra, 93-94.
146 a "crystalline tomb": Ibid. Hansen describes his drum ice story on pp. 108-11. 148 "large enough to drag down": Bill Shannon, interview by Minneapolis Star Daily, May 18, 1925.
148 his attempts to get blood: Tacoma News Tribune, n.d.
149 "fairly stupefied by the cold": Shannon interviewed by Seward Daily Gateway. Shannon's attempts to stay warm and his comment about being stupefied by the cold indicate the severity of his hypothermia.
15o "long conscious fight": Stuck, Ten Thousand Miles, 68.
15o "All of us who have traveled": Ibid.
15o arrival at Minto, coffee, condition of Shannon and dogs: Shannon interviews by Seward Daily Gateway, Tacoma News Tribune, n.d.; and unidentified newspaper, Seppala Collection, Rasmuson.
Chapter Eight: Along the Yukon River
153 dangling the container from the rafters: Shannon interview by Seward Daily Gateway.
153 The cabin was probably no warmer: Although Shannon noted the temperature outdoors, he never noted it inside the cabin. The temperature varied in a roadhouse: it was always pretty warm by the stove because drying out equipment and clothes was considered an essential service, but usually pretty cool where the bunks were located. 154 "lung scorching"...leaving dogs behind: Shannon interview by Seward Daily Gateway.
154 Seppala's pre-run preparations: Ricker, Alaskan Dog Driver, 289-91; Thompson, Seppala's Saga, 2:24-25; Ungermann, Race to Nome, 64-66.
155 uproar in kennel, cheering crowd: Ricker, Alaskan Dog Driver, 291; Thompson, Seppala's Saga, 2:25.
156 other patient histories: Medical Reports. The reports note the patients' symptoms and indicate who received serum.
157 would not wear off:Thompson, Seppala's Saga, 2:25.
158 Summers had warned Seppala: Seppala wrote often that Summers had warned him against crossing the sea ice.
158 "It is absolutely almost impossible": Olaf Swenson, Northwest of the World; Forty Years Trading and Hunting in Northern Siberia (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1944), 182-83.
160 Togo's early history: Ricker, Alaskan Dog Driver, 283-87; Thompson, Seppala's Saga, 2:14-16; Ungermann, Race to Nome, 113-18, and Togo's own "biography," Ricker's Togo's Fireside Reflections, and The New York Times Magazine, January 5, 1930. All these works give extensive details about Togo's life and early experiences on the trail.
160 "showing all the signs": Ungermann, Race to Nome, 115.
The Cruelest Miles: the Heroic Story of Dogs and Men in a Race Against an Epidemic Page 29