Balto and the Great Race

As cases increase and sick people are not cured, Dr. Welch grows exhausted and overworked. Thankfully, help comes in the form of Nurse Emily Morgan, a World War I nurse and missionary who was working in Nome when the epidemic hit. An illustration shows Nurse Morgan standing outside as a concerned father brings his sick child in his arms to her care. With her experience and ability to stay calm under severe pressure, the rate of new cases decreased. She became familiar with every patient, both those in the hospital and in their homes, and ordered those who were sick or exposed to the sick to avoid contact with healthy people. Volunteers from the Red Cross assist Nurse Morgan and Dr. Welch. They formulate a plan for the order in which to administer the serum to patients when it arrives.

Seppala and his team are in the middle of Norton Sound. Seppala trusts his lead dog, Togo, whom he knows has stellar eyesight, intuition, and an ability to run straight in one direction. When his dogs stop in the middle of the ice, Seppala notices the next sled team coming toward them, led by Henry Ivanoff. The serum is transferred to Seppala’s sled in wooden crates, and his becomes the 18th team to have carried it. After being filled in on the current situation, Seppala turns back to head for a town called Golovin where another musher awaits him, and moments later, his dogs fall through the ice.

Word comes from Ivanoff by telegraph that Seppala is on his way to Golovin with the serum, and Kaasen begins to ready his team to take it. Balto senses a storm coming. Meanwhile, Seppala gathers himself on the ice and pulls his dogs out one by one, who each remain calm and trust in Seppala’s ability to lead them to safety. Seppala treats their paws and considers himself lucky to have not fallen in the water and saved each of his dogs. He successfully reaches Golovin with his team, where a musher named Charlie Olson awaits his arrival. Olson witnessed an influenza epidemic in his own town of Golovin in 1918, and “did not want to see the same thing happen in Nome” (55).

It is late at night and Bluff is quiet as it hopefully awaits the arrival of Olson’s team. The weather in Nome worsens and many of their telegraph lines go down. Balto sits awake in Bluff and is the first to notice Olson’s team approaching; he alerts Kaasen with his barking. Kaasen is instructed to head to Solomon to use a working telegraph, and then to Port Safety for the final relay. Before leaving, Kaasen allows the serum to warm to prevent freezing, and Balto pulls on his harness, eager to leave. He already knows they must head back toward Nome. Kaasen and his team head across the Seward Peninsula, an open, rocky, windy terrain. In Solomon, a message awaits Kaasen alerting him to the blizzard and to stay there until it clears, but Kaasen never makes it to Solomon. The final musher, Ed Rohn, receives a telegraph as well, and assuming that Kaasen’s team will not arrive until morning, he decides to get some sleep.

The blizzard and darkness of night blind Kaasen and his team of dogs until the lead dog refuses to go further. When Kaasen places another dog in the lead, it too refuses to move. Kaasen knows that the dogs will not lead if they know they are lost. When Balto starts barking and straining, Kaasen can tell that he knows the way, and he places Balto in the lead. Balto’s memory, as well as his sense of smell and touch, allow him to guide the dogs and know which way to go. Kaasen trusts Balto implicitly as he is blindly led through the blizzard along with the other dogs. The lights of Solomon are invisible in the snow, and Balto leads them straight past the town and onward.

Kaasen’s team makes good time as they traverse the storm and the terrain until Balto stops in his tracks. He has approached a weak point in the ice and a few more steps would have spelled disaster. Kaasen leads the team back and around the weak spot, and Balto successfully gets them off the river and up onto land. They approach the edge of Norton Sound and head out onto the ice once more, where blustering winds are blowing slabs of ice on top of each other, and driftwood is spilling out of the sea. Suddenly, Kaasen’s sled is flung into the air by the wind “as if it were a child’s toy” (75), and he hangs on tightly as it sails and lands again. The sled spins out and lands on top of Kaasen, but thankfully he nor the dogs are hurt. Kaasen checks the dogs and his sled as Balto keeps the other dogs in line. He notices the crate of serum is gone and screams, but carefully feels his way blindly through the dark until he miraculously finds the crate. They arrive at Port Safety, but Kaasen can see the lights are out and the musher is asleep. He observes Balto’s confidence and endurance and decides to take the final 20 miles to Nome with his team and the serum in tow. At dawn, they safely arrive in Nome as the dogs howl with joy.

A crowd gathers around the team and congratulates them, helping to untie the dogs and carry the serum into the hospital. Kaasen insists that Balto is responsible for everything, having kept them on trail through the blinding blizzard and pursuing through the night all the way home. The serum is carried inside, and Dr. Welch and Nurse Morgan are already ready to administer it. They notice it is frozen, and warm it by the fire; it does not lose its effectiveness and the children’s health begins to improve almost immediately. Twenty dog teams did in five days what usually took two months, and the entire country followed the events.