Togo fathered many puppies at Ricker's kennels. After he died in 1929 at 16, his body, too, was mounted and displayed — for 20 years at the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University. Seppala visited Togo there in 1960, when he was in his 80s. “I never had a better dog than Togo,” he said. “His stamina, loyalty and intelligence could not be improved upon. Togo was the best dog that ever traveled the Alaska trail.”
In 1964, the mount was acquired by the Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, Vermont. But it was unprotected and over time was worn nearly threadbare from visitors’ petting. In 1979, the mount was placed in storage, where it languished for several years — until a newspaper story sparked a campaign by some Alaskans to get Togo back. Children, officials and dog clubs wrote letters to members of Congress, demanding that Togo be returned to the state of his birth. In 1983, a deal was worked out and the museum gave Togo to the Iditarod Trail Committee. Today, the mount can be seen in a glass case in a dimly lit room at Iditarod race headquarters in Wasilla. It has seen better days. The Peabody Museum still has Togo's bones, which also were mounted. The skeleton is in storage.
Also in 1928, the fearless explorer, Roald Amundsen, disappeared on a flight to the North Pole to rescue his old adversary, Umberto Nobile, whose plane had crashed on the ice. The brash Italian aviator eventually was rescued, but not by Amundsen, whose own plane plunged into the sea.
And what became of the other characters in our story? Sol Lesser had a long and successful career as a major Hollywood producer. He produced 117 feature films, including 16 “Tarzan” movies. In 1951, he won an Oscar for Kon-Tiki, a documentary about the famous raft expedition made in 1947 from Peru to Polynesia by Thor Heyerdahl, a Norwegian zoologist and adventurer. In 1960, Lesser won a humanitarian award for his support of theatrical and movie industry causes. He died in 1980 at age 90.
In 1950, Gunnar Kaasen left Nome and moved to Seattle, where he died a decade later at age 78. The author was unable to locate any of his relatives. In his obituary, he was described as a former miner and civil engineer.
Leonhard Seppala died in Seattle in 1967 at age 90. His wife, Constance, scattered his ashes along the Iditarod Trail. He is still a legend in Alaska, though his name is not well known in the Lower 48.
Cleveland businessman George Kimble quietly moved to New York, but his thread in this story has been lost. The author could not learn when or where he died.
Sam Houston, the owner of the dime museum, toured the West with a live gorilla and managed a circus, not necessarily in that order. In the late 1930s, he bought three railroad baggage cars and filled them with a collection of odd objects: wax figures, a one-man Japanese submarine, a dead, mounted, two-headed calf; a saddle that allegedly once belonged to Pancho Villa, the famous Mexican bandit and revolutionary. (The saddle had a rear view mirror so that Villa could see any enemies riding up behind him.) Houston would hitch the cars to a train and the train would pull the strange exhibit from town to town. His last known venture was a dime museum with a “wishing well” inside. The author does not know when Houston died. He is said to have been a handsome man, and lived in a hotel in Los Angeles.
Frederick George Richard Roth died in 1944 after a long career during which he created many beautiful large and small animal sculptures which still grace many American buildings, parks and museums.
In 1998, Cody McGinn, a third-grader in Palmer, Alaska, with the help of his teacher, launched a campaign to get Balto back, and the Alaska Legislature officially asked the Cleveland Museum of Natural History to return the mount. The museum declined, but agreed to lend the mount to the Anchorage Museum of History and Art for a three-month exhibit. It did — for the 1999 Iditarod race — and the show was a huge success. When Cody heard Balto's full story and all that he had suffered after the serum run, he told this author: “Cleveland helped save him, so he belongs to both sides. Maybe we could share him.” The author disagrees and feels Balto rightly belongs to Cleveland. But she hopes the museum will continue to let the mount travel to other U.S. cities so as many children as possible can see it.
Today, 67 years after Balto's death, the mount still exudes something magical and powerful. Balto's shiny black fur has faded to mahogany, the natural effect of air and light exposure, and his white “socks” are now light gray. But the fur is still thick and lustrous, and the body is strong and muscular. Balto's eyes are now glass beads, but they shine through the glass case that contains the mount in a transfixing way. They look very real, and the gaze is alert and dignified. The mount is displayed each year for several weeks around the time of the Iditarod, along with an 8-minute video of old film clips, including one showing Kaasen, Balto and the rest of the team in Nome shortly after the serum run. Another shows Dr. Curtis Welch injecting a diphtheria-stricken child with serum at Nome's small hospital in 1925. Still another shows Seppala and his dogs, including Togo, arriving by ship in Seattle. The museum's annual Balto display is wonderful! It changes slightly from year to year as the museum acquires new Balto memorabilia and details of the story. The museum hopes to someday find a copy of Lesser's 20-minute re-enactment of the serum run.
Nothing could be learned about the fates of the five huskies that are unnamed in this story. One or more dogs may have died in the dime museum, or on the vaudeville tour. Of those that were sold, at least one reportedly produced offspring. The author would like to think that some dogs in America today carry the genes of at least some of Balto's teammates.
Balto's statue still overlooks Central Park. So many children have climbed on the larger-than-life bronze dog and hugged it so fiercely for so many years that parts have been rubbed golden, while the rest has turned bluish green with verdigris, a natural chemical residue that forms on bronze. The statue is between 66th Street and 67th Street on the east side of the park. According to the official Guide to Manhattan's Outdoor Sculpture, it is New York's only statue commemorating a dog. (Unfortunately, the guide incorrectly states that Balto died as a result of the serum run!)
In Cleveland, nothing at all remains of the old Brookside Zoo — not one original exhibit — and the zoo's name has been changed to Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. The oldest exhibit still standing — Monkey Island — was built in 1936 — three years after Balto's death. The Fulton Road Bridge is crumbling — so dangerously that a safety net has been draped from the bridge to prevent any loose chunks from falling on the heads of zoo visitors. The team's sled has mysteriously disappeared, along with all its collars, food dishes and water bowls and six of the seven harnesses. The one remaining harness is on display at the Wolf Wilderness gift shop. Was it Balto's? No one knows.
Happily, Balto and Togo have been reunited, at least symbolically. Bronze statues of the two famous huskies have been placed outside the Wolf Wilderness exhibit center, which looks like an old trapper's cabin.
Balto sits erect; Togo is lying down. They seem be looking up at a wooded ridge slightly behind and above them — at the very real gray wolves that live there and seem often to be looking back at them.
The End
Sources
Information on Balto and the other characters in this book was drawn from a wide variety of sources, including old newspaper stories, letters, books, magazines, press releases, film clips and interviews with surviving relatives and acquaintances. Many of the sources, or references to them, were found in the Cleveland Museum of Natural History's Balto archives, where the research for this book began. In cases where information from one source conflicted with another, the author used that which she thought more credible. Here are some of the sources:
The Race to Nome by Kenneth A. Ungermann; Harper & Row, Publishers, 1963
Seppala: Alaskan Dog Driver by Elizabeth M. Ricker; Little, Brown, and Company, 1930
Seppala's Saga of the Sled Dog by Raymond Thompson, self-published sometime in the 1970s. Existing copies are very rare.
Togo's Fireside Reflections by Elizabeth M. Ricker; Lewiston Journal Printshop, 1928
To
go, The Hero Dog by Barbara L. Narendra, Discovery, The Magazine of the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, Volume 24, Number 2, 1993
The Complete Siberian Husky by Lorna D. Demidoff and Michael Jennings; Howell Book House, Inc., New York 1978
Roald Amundsen: A Saga of the Polar Seas by J. Alvin Kugelmass; Julian Messner, Inc., 1955
Nansen: The Explorer as Hero by Roland Huntford; Barnes & Noble Books, 1998
The Last Place on Earth: Scott and Amundsen's Race to the South Pole by Roland Huntford; Modern Library, New York, 1983
Fifty Years of Vaudeville, 1895-1945 by Ernest Short; Eyre & Spottiswoode, London, 1946
Once Upon a Stage, the Merry World of Vaudeville by Charles and Louise Samuels; Dodd, Mead & Co., New York, 1974
LEISURE and Entertainment in AMERICA by Donna R. Braden; Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village, Dearborn, Michigan, 1988
Freak Show by Robert Bogdan; The University of Chicago Press, 1988
American History in 100 Nutshells by Tad Tuleja; Fawcett Columbine, 1992
New York: A Documentary by Ric Burns
The Cleveland Plain Dealer, New York Times, Seattle Times, Los Angeles Times, Detroit Free Press, United Press International, Nome Nugget, Siberian Husky Club News and Northern Dog News.
Mount Rainier National Park Official Web Site
ISBN 1-888125-24-1
eBook ISBN 978-1-59433-501-3
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 98-65166
Copyright 1998 by Don Bowers
—First Printing 1998—
—Second Printing 2000—
—Third Printing 2003—
—Fourth Printing 2005—
—Fifth Printing 2008—
—Sixth Printing 2010—
—Seventh Printing 2012—
—Eighth Printing 2014—
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in any form, or by any mechanical or electronic means including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, in whole or in part in any form, and in any case not without the written permission of the author and publisher.
Manufactured in the United States of America.
Dedication
This is Everyman’s Iditarod, a tribute to the dedicated dreamers and their dogs who run to Nome in the back of the pack with no hope of prize money or glory. This is “the rest of the story” of the Last Great Race on Earth.
Contents
Foreword Martin Buser
Introduction
March 20, 1994 Front Street, Nome, Alaska
April 10, 1994 Amber Lake, Alaska
April 25, 1994 Montana Creek, Alaska
May 25, 1994 Iditarod Headquarters—Wasilla, Alaska
June 2, 1994 Anchorage, Alaska
July 20, 1994 Montana Creek, Alaska
August 15, 1994 Montana Creek, Alaska
September 25, 1994 Mount Spurr Elementary Anchorage, Alaska
September 30, 1994 Montana Creek, Alaska
October 6, 1994 Montana Creek, Alaska
October 10, 1994 Montana Creek, Alaska
October 22, 1994 Montana Creek, Alaska
October 29, 1994 Montana Creek, Alaska
November 5, 1994 Montana Creek, Alaska
November 6, 1994 Montana Creek, Alaska
November 10-30, 1994 Eagle River, Alaska
December 15, 1994 Montana Creek, Alaska
December 17-18, 1994 Sheep Creek Lodge, Alaska The Sheep Creek Christmas Classic
December 31, 1994—January 1, 1995 The Knik 200
January 7, 1995 Montana Creek, Alaska
January 13-17, 1995 The Copper Basin 300
February 1, 1995 Iditarod Headquarters—Wasilla, Alaska
February 3, 1995 Montana Creek, Alaska
February 10, 1995 Montana Creek, Alaska
February 12, 1995 Montana Creek, Alaska
February 17, 1995 Montana Creek and Anchorage, Alaska
February 26, 1995 Wasilla, Alaska
March 3, 1995 Anchorage, Alaska
March 4, 1995 The Iditarod
March 9, 1995 Rainy Pass and Montana Creek, Alaska
March 10-22, 1995 Montana Creek, Talkeetna, and Anchorage, Alaska
April 15, 1995 Montana Creek, Alaska
May 15, 1995 Montana Creek, Alaska
June 10, 1995 Montana Creek, Alaska
June 24, 1995 Talkeetna, Alaska
July 15, 1995 Montana Creek, Alaska
July 19, 1995 Montana Creek, Alaska
July 26, 1995 Montana Creek, Alaska
August 1, 1995 Montana Creek, Alaska
August 10, 1995 Montana Creek, Alaska
August 25, 1995 Montana Creek, Alaska
August 30, 1995 Wasilla, Alaska
September 20, 1995 Montana Creek, Alaska
October 4, 1995 Montana Creek, Alaska
November 4, 1995 Montana Creek, Alaska
November 15, 1995 Montana Creek, Alaska
November 21, 1995 Montana Creek, Alaska
November 26, 1995 Montana Creek, Alaska
December 10, 1995 Montana Creek, Alaska
December 20-21, 1995 Forks Roadhouse, Alaska The Forks Roadhouse Christmas Race
December 24, 1995 Montana Creek, Alaska
December 30, 1995 Montana Creek, Alaska
January 1, 1996 Montana Creek, Alaska
January 20-23, 1996 The Klondike 300
February 14, 1996 Montana Creek, Alaska
February 24, 1996 Wasilla, Alaska
February 29, 1996 Anchorage, Alaska
March 2, 1996 The Iditarod
Epilogue
Appendix Iditarod Background
Foreword
Martin Buser
Three-time Iditarod Champion
Big Lake, Alaska
Back of the Pack is a fabulously written account of the Iditarod experience and the long and difficult path of just getting to the race starting line, and of the incredible amount of work and determination it takes. Don has put in words what many of us have experienced over the years but always kept to ourselves.
As you join Don in his Iditarod epic, you will gain a new respect for the land and the dogs. You’ll meet Socks, Pullman, Buck, and Maybelline as they are getting themselves and their owner ready for the world’s longest sled dog race, Alaska’s Iditarod — a challenge of body, mind and soul. Don and his team encounter numerous obstacles on their long way to the burled arch finish line in Nome. Their account will enlighten, educate, and amuse you, as you become one with their motley crew.
Back of the Pack is great adventure on the way to Nome. Travel up the trail and join Don and his huskies as they are chasing their dream of reaching the finish line. Back of the Pack is a must read for all travelers of any mode.
Introduction
To those who are unfamiliar with it, the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race is probably one of the more exotic sporting events in the world. In reality, though, it is much more than a race—it is the culmination and commemoration of a lifestyle that is unique to the North Country, and whose roots extend more than a thousand years back into the prehistory of Alaska.
On the one hand, modern mushers on the 1,150-mile run from Anchorage to Nome travel in the footsteps of the freight and mail mushers of the early part of this century. In another and deeper sense, they are carrying on the tradition of Alaska’s earliest inhabitants, who perfected the use of dog teams more than a millennium ago. Indeed, the race is a remarkable journey into the past, passing through legendary frontier gold-rush mining districts as well as some of the very Native villages where mushing was born.
When I decided to run the 1995 Iditarod as a rookie musher, after many years of flying for the race as a volunteer pilot, I resolved to keep a journal of what I thought would be an interesting adventure on a par with my flying exploits. However, this account rapidly became much more than I expected as I found that becoming a musher was far, far more than learning to stand on the runners of
a sled, and was a world apart from seeing the race from the air.
I learned that to drive dogs in anything more than a recreational mode is to adopt a lifestyle centered around the dogs themselves. I also discovered this way of life is addictive beyond imagination—there is virtually no escaping once hooked. The dogs become a second family, and the affection and devotion given to them is easily equal to that given to any human family.
This alternative lifestyle has a payoff which few people outside it fully appreciate. Unlike a house pet or even a hunting dog, a team of sled dogs is a finely tuned machine that is a passport to—and a permanent link with—another world. A dog team in Alaska in winter is the ultimate instrument of discovery. Nothing can compare to a run along wilderness trails under a full moon and the shimmering aurora behind a ghostly silent, smoothly pulling team—actually a team of friends—that you’ve trained yourself.
To run the Iditarod is the ultimate goal of almost every dog musher. It is a daunting test for both team and driver, but it is also the most profoundly rewarding journey imaginable. No one who has ever run the race will ever forget a moment of it, nor the incredible range of emotions and experiences it represents.
I regret that mere words cannot adequately convey the intensity and spirit of the Iditarod and everything leading up to it. This journal is at best an imperfect log of a two-year voyage of discovery. I hope it will paint at least a partial picture of what it is like to prepare for and run the Last Great Race on Earth.
Note: A background of the Iditarod—both the trail and the race—and a brief introduction to dog mushing can be found in the Appendix.
Alaska Dogs and Iditarod Mushers Page 6