On March 16th 2004, Mitch Seavey of Seward Alaska, fulfilled a longtime dream of winning the Iditarod sled dog race when he slid under the burled arches in Nome behind his 8 dogs. He and his husky team navigated more than 1100 miles of snow, ice, and bitterly cold winds in just 9 and ½ days, finishing first among 87 entries. Each March, the grueling race is run from Anchorage to Nome in commemorative of the 1925 run carrying lifesaving serum to diphtheria victims.

The heroes of that serum run enjoyed a short time of recognition before the years of vaudeville and, later, the Great Depression preoccupied minds, and the mushers' great mission was all but forgotten. However, decades later, the story was revived through a movie called Balto. But whatever became of Balto, and what about the other dogs in that mercy run?

Balto was born in Alaska, into the kennel of Leonhard Seppala who worked for a gold mining company, driving supplies by dog sled to the camps and taking sick or injured miners for medical care in Nome. Seppala, a seasoned musher, bred and raised Siberian huskies and named this pup after Samuel J. Balto, one of the two men to first cross the Greenland Ice Cap. Even though Balto grew to be one of his largest dogs, Seppala considered an older husky named Togo to be his top mushing dog. Togo was small by husky standards, but strong and determined. Named after the Japanese admiral, Togo Heihachiro, he dominated the 34 other dogs in Seppala's kennel and could be counted on to keep the trail through the harshest blizzard. Still, Seppala's young assistant, Gunnar Kaasen, favored Balto.

When a diphtheria epidemic broke out in Nome, the only way to get medication from Anchorage to the isolated town was by dog sled. Seppala, being the best musher in the area, was chosen to meet the train, pick up the serum and deliver it to the small community. Everyone was confident that he and his team was the most qualified to make the 1300 mile trip through blizzard conditions in the peak of a savage Alaskan winter. Of course, Seppala relied on Togo to lead the grueling run.

After Seppala left, officials came up with a better plan of using a relay so that fresh dogs could deliver the serum even more quickly. They wired a message to the Nenana train station and so it was that, on the trail, Seppala met up with another driver who had already left with the serum. Learning of the relay, he took the 20 lb package and turned his team around. Meanwhile, Gunnar Kaasen had been asked to join the relay and he harnessed Balto at the head of his team.

сThe serum was traded off several times to other drivers and their teams along the trail. Each driver and each dog reached deep into his heart for the strength to keep going through the swirling snow and subzero temperatures. It was Kaasen's turn at Bluff to continue on toward the town of Safety where he was to hand off his package to the next team. Stories conflict as to why he missed his stop. One says that he found the relief team asleep and, rather than waste time waiting for them to harness up, he continued on. Another story says that the blizzard was so blinding that he missed the town completely, as Balto kept to the main trail. For whatever reason, it was Gunnar Kaasen and his dogs, led by Balto, who carried the precious cargo on into Nome just before dawn. Word spread and it was Kaasen and Balto who quickly became heroes!

A film crew had Kaasen and his team reenact their arrival into Nome, as residents looked on and cheered. While other mushers and dogs had contributed to the lifesaving run, it seemed that no one thought of them. Seppala and his team led by Togo had traveled nearly twice as far as any of the others, yet all the glory went to the young assistant and Balto who had traveled only 53 miles of the trip. Seppala, understandably, felt a bit of resentment.

Sol Lesser, a young Hollywood producer, made a short educational film about Kaasen's team and named it Balto's Race to Nome, greatly exaggerating Balto's part in the run. After the 20 minute film was finished, Kaasen booked a vaudeville tour around America. During one stop in New York City, a well known animal sculptor, Frederick George Roth, created a statue of Balto which stands today near the entrance of Central Park.

It was about this time that Seppala was finally offered a contract to take his dogs to Madison Square Garden in New York City and drive them around the ice arena. Togo would be presented with a gold medal from Roald Amundsen, the famous Arctic explorer, and would at last have his heroism officially recognized. Amundsen, a longtime friend of Seppala, understood his resentment for Kaasen stealing the limelight. Somehow he managed to convince Kaasen to leave New York and allow Seppala the attention he deserved. Kaasen returned to Nome but abandoned abandoned his dogs, who ended up in what was called a dime museum, which at the time was a third-class form of entertainment.

Balto and his teammates, Fox, Sye, Billie, Tillie, Alaska Slim, and Old Moctoc suffered poor transport conditions, inadequate care, and stifling heat. One day, a Cleveland businessman and former boxer named George Kimble, walked into the museum. He saw the noble dogs languishing in small quarters and panting in the heat and his heart went out to them. Kimble made an appeal through the newspaper to raise money to buy them from the museum. 1200 people donated enough funds to buy the dogs and ship them to Cleveland where they spent their remaining years in refuge at the Brookside Zoo, now called the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. They were well cared for in a beautiful nature setting and happily pulled sleds around the park when winter snows came.

Though given the best of care by a veterinarian named Dr. Powell, time took its toll and the dogs, one by one, slipped away. On March 14, 1933, Balto, age 11, partially blind, partially deaf, and arthritic joined his departed teammates. Only one dog remained and he passed away a year later at the age of 17.

Balto's body was stuffed and mounted by a taxidermist at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History where it still stands.

Togo spent his retirement in Maine, at the kennels of Elizabeth Ricker, champion sled dog racer and friend of Seppala. He sired many puppies before his death in 1929, at the age of 16. His body too was mounted and is now on display at the Iditarod race headquarters in Wasilla.

Bronze statues of Togo and Balto rest outside a rustic cabin that houses the Wolf Wilderness exhibit in the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. Through the years, Balto has garnered most of the attention for the heroic run, leaving Togo to stand in his shadow but, in 1960, an aged Seppala still claimed, "I never had a better dog than Togo."