02

Balto, The Best Lead-Dog In Alaska

Frances Margaret Fox

Perhaps you think that dogs are used only as pets. Do you know that for hundreds of years dogs have been helpers of man? They have hunted food for him, carried his loads and messages, and guarded his home. In this story you will read how faithful dogs helped brave men in a time of great need.

Balto was a dog of the United States Postal Service in far - off Alaska. In the city of Nome, one black morning, he stepped into the world's Story - Book of Shining Deeds. That picture - book opened wide and took him in forever.

It was mid - winter, and an epidemic of diphtheria had broken out in Nome. They called it the “Black Death” up there, for the disease carried off not only the children but their fathers and mothers. Indeed, whole families were swept away during the time of that dreadful sickness. If the disease could not be stopped in Nome, it was likely to spread over all the territory of which that city was the center — to the east one thousand miles, and north even as far as the Arctic Ocean. In this region there lived eleven thousand people. To care for them there was in Nome but one doctor, who with his little band of nurses belonged to the United States Public Health Service .

Far away in the United States there was a cure for diphtheria, called antitoxin serum . The doctor sent out a frantic appeal for help. A twenty-pound package of the precious serum for fighting diphtheria would save the children, the families at Nome, and all the surrounding territory from the Black Death.

Immediately the serum was rushed toward Alaska. Without loss of time the railroad carried the package of serum from Seward to Nenana. Dog-teams must continue the journey six hundred and sixty-five miles by trail westward to Nome. Never before that time had the journey from Nenana to Nome been made in less than nine days. The heroic drivers of the dog - teams risked their lives by taking cross - cuts, never attempted in such weather before. The serum reached Nome in five and one - half days!

But for the glorious deed of the dog, Balto, in the last sixty miles of the dash for Nome, this remarkable feat could not have been accomplished. However, if it had not been for the work of other heroic dogs and their drivers, big black Balto would not have had his chance to reach Nome with the serum and thus save hundreds of lives.

It was the driver Leonard Seppala who chose to cross the entrance to Norton Bay, instead of following the long shore - line around the bay. Because a hurricane was raging and the ice was breaking up and drifting out to sea, Seppala was warned not to try the short - cut across the bay. He thought of the long bay stretching up into the land, with a shore - line requiring days to travel, while children were dying at Nome — children whose lives might be saved if only the precious serum could reach them in time. The brave man and his twenty dogs crossed the bay in that frightful storm, with Scotty and Togo in the lead. He admitted to the next driver, Charlie Olsen, that he had a bad trip across the bay.

At the village of Bluff, Charlie Olsen found Gunnar Kasson waiting with his dog - team, headed by Balto, the best lead - dog in Alaska. So cold was it then, and the wind was blowing so hard, that the men feared the serum might freeze. They took it into a cabin to warm it. There Gunnar Kasson waited, hoping the wind would go down. Instead, it blew faster, and the cold grew more intense. Two hours passed. The wind blew faster than the men had ever known it to blow before, and the temperature had gone down to twenty-eight below zero. Suddenly Kasson decided that it was useless to wait any longer.

The dogs were hitched and he started, hoping to reach Safety, the station thirty-four miles away, before the trails were too deeply buried under the fast-falling snow. It was then ten o'clock on Sunday night. Kasson was dressed in sealskins from top to toe, but the wind was blowing so hard it went through the fur.

At Safety another driver with a dog-team would be waiting to carry the serum on through the last twenty-one miles. But before Kasson arrived, the driver at Safety sent word to Nome that the wind was blowing eighty miles an hour, with snow coming down in such heavy whirling drifts that no man or dog could keep the trail.

In the meantime, Balto struggled on through the drifts with Gunnar Kasson. Six hundred feet up a hill, he and the other dogs climbed in the storm; and then down the other side in the lashing wind, to a spot where for six miles the traveling was hard in any weather. The driver could not see his dogs, not even the nearest one. He could hardly see his hand before his face. Then he knew that he was lost. He could not even guess where he was.

More than half-way between Bluff and Safety there was a station called Solomon. There a message from Nome was waiting for Balto's driver, warning him to stop. The night was so cold and the storm was so furious that it was believed that man and dogs would surely perish in the blizzard if they attempted to go on.

Long before the sled reached Solomon, Balto was in charge of the journey. He alone knew in what direction to continue traveling. Regardless of darkness, cold, and blinding snow, the dog scented out the trail on the windswept ice and traveled on and on past Solomon. The bewildered driver missed the message from Nome; and in the face of the worst wind that he had ever known, Kasson followed blindly the leading of Balto.

Many times the sled tipped over and spilled everything in the soft snow. Again and again the driver straightened the sled and begged Balto to go on through the blackness, where no human being could have found the way.

At last the trail turned, so that the wind was behind the travelers, and helped them instead of hindering. Then, when the dogs reached Safety, the wind went down. The little house at Safety was dark; so instead of awakening the relay driver and wasting time, Kasson and his dogteam dashed by with the serum.

It was twenty - one miles from Safety to Nome, and the trail along the sea was heavy with drifted snow. By this time, though, it was no longer so dark, and the driver could see the trail. At thirty - six minutes past fi ve on that wild dark morning, the half - frozen team, headed by Balto, arrived at Nome with the life - saving serum.

No wonder the driver almost wept, as he knelt in the snow and began pulling the slivers of ice from Balto's torn and bleeding feet. For it was Balto alone who had known the trail that stormy night and had carried the serum safely through to suffering Nome. Perhaps if the noble dog could speak he would merely repeat words he had heard over and over in Alaska from the brave men who serve the United States Government through sunshine and tempest , and who say, “It is all in the day's work for Uncle Sam.”

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

1. What great danger faced the people of Nome? Find the lines that tell just what the trouble was. Be ready to read them, or to tell what they say.

2. Find lines that tell exactly what Balto did that saved the serum. Be ready to read them, or to tell in one sentence how Balto saved the serum.

3. Find the lines that tell how one driver took a cross-cut that saved time. Be ready to read them, or to tell what the driver did.

4. On a wall map show just where the serum was carried in Alaska. Or make an outline map of Alaska and draw a line to show how the serum was carried from the time it reached Alaska. The map on page 17 will help you.

5. Do you know a story of a dog who helped his master? Tell it to the class. Nx46SJWGSTCXObOQBz0RRxVfd6paGwlK5RMWbBohKkJytG0e3k02t1d2Q/CJXpXD