In 1925, the town of Nome, Alaska, was experiencing a severe diphtheria outbreak. The town didn’t have sufficient antitoxin to treat the many severely ill town residents, many of them children, so 20 teams of mushers and their sled dogs relayed goods from Nenana to Nome via the Iditarod Trail, an astonishing 674 miles, to deliver medicine and supplies to the town, in just over five days. The teams faced lethal conditions, including temperatures which reached fifty degrees below zero and a climb over 5,000-foot mountain peaks. People around the world followed the story, which made newspaper headlines and was reported on the radio.
Balto, an Alaskan husky, was bred by musher Leonhard Seppala. He led the final leg of the journey, which faced the harshest conditions, with musher Gunnar Kaasen. He lived to the ripe old age of 14. Fans of his bravery can visit more than just his statue: after his passing, he was taxidermied, and now resides at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. His actual coat color appears to be a chocolate brown, with two long, white front socks.
In recognition of what lead dog Balto and the other dogs and men did, a team of New York City artists, led by Cecilia Beaux, raised funds and petitioned the city to commission a statue to honor the brave dog and the other teams who accomplished an almost unimaginable feat. Brooklyn-born sculptor Frederick Roth was chosen to create a tribute sculpture to stand in Central Park. The artist modeled the figure on an Alaskan Malamute from New Hampshire named Chinook, so the statue’s appearance is somewhat different than the actual Balto.
The statue was unveiled on December 17, 1925, and has been standing vigil on a rocky outcrop in the park ever since. For the past century, Balto’s tribute statue has been a popular destination for park-goers, especially children.
The inscription reads: “Dedicated to the indomitable spirit of the sled dogs that relayed antitoxin six hundred miles over rough ice, across treacherous waters, through Arctic blizzards from Nenana to the relief of stricken Nome in the Winter of 1925. Endurace – Fidelity – Intelligence.”
Now, a team of conservators care for Balto: the statue is routinely treated with a hot wax coating and polishing, to protect it from the elements. The sculpture is apparently also now subjected to three-dimensional scanning, to document its condition, in the event that it needs to be repaired. Balto’s statue isn’t the only one to commemorate the event: Togo, another sled dog on the Nome rescue mission, also has a bronze statue dedicated to him, in a Seward Park in Lower Manhattan.
