History

The origin of the Iditarod dates back to 1925 when the city of Nome, a northwestern Alaskan city on the Bering Sea, was threatened by a diphtheria epidemic. Children in Nome were dying due to the lack of serum needed to fight this disease. Hospitals in Anchorage had the only fresh supply of serum. The dilemma was that the ocean was iced over and the railroad stopped more than 600 miles short of Nome. It was decided that the antitoxin would be transported by dogsled the additional 674 miles from Nenana to Nome. Twenty dog teams of about 150 dogs relayed the medicine in a record of five days. Balto and his musher, Gunnar Kaasen, endured temperatures sixty below zero and 70 mile per hour winds while running the last leg of the relay, a 53 mile journey. Balto is now well known as the “Hero of Nome” and “Balto the Wonder Dog” (The Official Site).