The serum transfer points were Tolovana, Manley Hot Springs, Fish Lake, Tanana, Kallands, Nine Mile Cabin, Kokrines, Ruby, Whiskey Creek, Galena, Bishop Mountain, Nulato, Kaltag, Old Woman Shelter, Unalakleet, Shaktoolik, Golovin, Bluff, and Nome. The route turned west, 90 miles over the Kaltag Portage to Unalakleet on the shore of Norton Sound, then continued for 208 miles northwest around the southern shore of the Seward Peninsula and 42 harrowing miles across the shifting ice of the Bering Sea. The mail route from Nenana to Nome followed the Tanana River for 137 miles to the junction with the Yukon River, and then followed the Yukon for 230 miles to Kaltag. Map of the Serum Run from The Cruelest Miles, by Gay and Laney Salisbury (W.W.Norton & Co., 2003) The teams would travel day and night until they handed off the package to Seppala at Nulato. mail carriers, widely acknowledged to be the best dog mushers in Alaska. Post Office inspector, to arrange a relay of the best drivers and dogs across the Interior the majority of the relay mushers selected were native Athabaskan U.S. While the first batch of serum was traveling to Nenana, Governor Bone gave final authorization to the dog relay, but ordered Edward Wetzler, the U.S. Seppala was notified that evening and immediately started preparations for the trip. While potentially quicker, the board of health rejected the aircraft option and voted unanimously for the dogsled relay. Nome Mayor Maynard proposed flying the antitoxin by aircraft, but the only planes operating in Alaska in 1925 were three vintage biplanes which were dismantled for the winter, had open cockpits, and had water-cooled engines that were unreliable in cold weather. His lead dog, the 12-year-old Togo, was equally famous for his leadership, intelligence, and ability to sense danger. He had previously made the run from Nome to Nulato in a record-breaking four days, won the All-Alaska Sweepstakes three times, and had become something of a legend for his athletic ability and rapport with his Siberian huskies. Summers’ employee, the Norwegian Leonhard Seppala, was chosen for the 630-mile round trip from Nome to Nulato and back. Welch calculated that the serum would only last six days under the brutal conditions of the trail. The trip from Nulato to Nome normally took 30 days, although the record was nine. One would start at Nenana and the other at Nome, and they would meet at Nulato. Seppala’s Racing leader – Nome Serum Runīy January 24 there were two more fatalities, and at a meeting of the board of health that same day, superintendent Mark Summers of the Hammon Consolidated Gold Fields proposed a dogsled relay, using two fast teams. Mail and supplies were customarily transported by train to Nenana, and then freighted by dog team 675 miles from Nenana to Nome, a journey which normally took 25 days. When the Bering Sea froze over the only link to the rest of the world was the Iditarod Trail, which ran 938 miles from the port of Seward, across several mountain ranges and through the vast Interior of the territory before reaching Nome. The gold rush town of Nome was still the largest town in the northern half of Alaska in 1925, with a population of around 1,500 souls. The race became both the most famous event in the history of mushing and the last hurrah for a means of transportation which had opened the vast northern territory of Alaska. territory of Alaska, accomplished by 20 mushers and about 150 sled dogs in only five and a half days, saving the community of Nome from a deadly epidemic. Seppala and Elizabeth Ricker, wife of the Poland Spring Hotel manager and a "musher" herself, started a kennel breeding these Seppala Siberian sleddogs at Poland Spring.The 1925 serum run to Nome, also known as the Great Race of Mercy, was a 675 mile dog team relay of diphtheria antitoxin across the U.S. His team raced Arthur Walden's Chinook team of New Hampshire at Poland Spring in 1927. He and his dog team were part of a famous serum run in Alaska known as the Great Race of Mercy that used dog sled teams to deliver an emergency supply of diphtheria serum to Nome in 1925. Leonhard Seppala brought his dog sled team of Siberian Husky's to Maine in 1927 during a tour of the United States.
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