Balto and Togo
(Thanksgiving 2020)
It doesn’t feel like Thanksgiving for a lot of us. Some families are sharing pictures of empty chairs, the ones once filled by family members lost to COVID. Other families, like mine, are not getting together now or at Christmas, precisely because of the risk those pictures represent. Still others have little reason this year to celebrate the idea of abundance.
Most of us should be thanking our lucky stars. This crapshoot of a pandemic has been pretty heavily weighted in our favor, since the disease is killing or crippling only the weakest among us. In fact, this whole crisis, with the masks, distancing, and economic slowdown, has been an attempt at shared social responsibility, weathering the storm together to protect our most vulnerable. People are growing tired of the burden, if the soaring hospitalizations are any indication.
We’ve also largely given up on finding inspiration. Moments with the potential to lift our spirits never amounted to much. In early April, a police escort accompanied a New England Patriots tractor trailer delivering 300,000 N-95 masks to hospital personnel in New York City. Owner Robert Kraft had sent the team plane to China to pick up some 1.7 million masks, which were then offloaded by National Guard troops. The cops were clearly excited to be part of the spectacle rolling down Interstate 95, with their flashing lights and whooping sirens. It was much like the arrival of the USNS COMFORT, the hospital ship ordered by President Trump to New York Harbor. Crowds stood along the shore and waved in excitement. Fire boats shot streams of water high in the air as a sign of welcome. These moments represented hope: Hell, yeah! Finally, somebody’s doing something to fight back - but sadly we came to realize that all those masks were gone as quickly as leaves in a fire, and the COMFORT only saw 182 patients while tens of thousands of others died elsewhere in intensive care.
Now, three vaccines stand ready to rid the world of this scourge. These are phenomenally impressive achievements, hijacking the virus’ messenger-RNA process and blunting the effect of its spike proteins, the weapon that’s made it so cruelly effective. We’re on the threshold of a seminal moment in world history.
It’s one thing if your side has won the election, or that the Pittsburgh Steelers have started the season 10-0, or even that the Cleveland Browns are 7-3. The Browns 7-3? We’ve always imagined that was possible, but it’s happening now? For real?
The vaccines are a victory for all of humanity. Whether we are together or apart, we should all be ripping our clothes off and partying this Thanksgiving.
Speaking of that kind of delirium: in 1925, the nation hung on news from a drama unfolding in Alaska. An outbreak of diphtheria threatened the city of Nome, and a 20-team relay of dogsleds was poised to rush an antitoxin serum across the wilderness before time ran out. Updates were front page news in papers across the country, and those who had radios tuned in for the latest bulletins.
In mid January, as two children presented symptoms and died quickly, Dr. Curtis Welch realized a diphtheria epidemic was imminent. Hastily, he and the mayor arranged a quarantine and sent radio telegrams all around the territory warning of the danger. To Washington, DC, he pleaded for antitoxin serum. Despite the quarantine, Nome quickly developed 20 cases. An epidemic would prove 100 percent fatal to the entire area, where the 1918 Spanish flu had already killed half the population.
Diphtheria is a bacterial infection that begins with a sore throat and fever. Patches develop in the throat, which can block the airway, and from there, numerous complications ensue. The patches form a coating that blocks and damages tissues throughout the respiratory system. Cardiac and nerve problems develop afterward, all the result of a toxin released by the bacteria. Children were particularly susceptible.
In Alaska, the authorities considered their options. The ocean near Nome was frozen solid, and a ship’s journey from Seattle would take too long, anyway. The only airplanes in Alaska had open cockpits and water cooled engines, and had long been dismantled for the winter. The only solution was dog teams. The Post Office Inspector agreed to arrange a relay. It was 675 miles from the train terminus at Nenana to Nome. A mail run was usually about 25 days.
The serum will only last for six, he was told. What’s more, an Arctic high pressure system had blown in the most brutal weather in 25 years.
Not one moment of the relay was anything but heroic. ‘Wild Bill’ Shannon left Nenana with an 11-dog team in temperatures of minus 50 degrees. He became hypothermic and had to run beside the sled to keep warm. He stopped to rest and drop off three dogs, who quickly died, and continued with eight, reaching his transfer point with a face blackened by frostbite. Another driver had to have water poured over his hands at an arrival point so he could release the sled’s handle. Still another had to pull his sled himself when two dogs collapsed. As he reached his transfer point, the dogs were dead.
The Arctic storm had swept from Alaska to the continental States, bringing record lows, freezing the Hudson River in New York, and adding to the drama playing across newspapers and radios from coast to coast. In Alaska, authorities argued and second guessed their decision. A fifth victim had died in Nome, and the case count climbed to 27. The antitoxin supply would only treat 30.
The sled drivers, mostly native Athabaskans, crossed ice, climbed and descended mountains, and were sometimes hit by gusts ferocious enough to throw them through the air and off the trail. One team crashed into a reindeer.
Eventually, the packet was handed to Norwegian born musher Gunnar Kassen, whose lead dog was named Balto. It was 70 below zero. Waiting for the storm to break only made it worse, so Kassen and his team headed out into a hellscape of chest-deep snow, pitch blackness, and hurricane force winds. He could hardly hear himself think as the wind slammed down from the mountains or shrieked through tunnels created by the landscape. At times he was so blinded by snow he couldn’t even see the two dogs closest to his sled, but somehow, at the head of the team, in front of six sets of dogs two abreast, Balto drove on. Kassen hung on - for dear life, and as the sled lurched left to right, up and down as it plunged through the blizzard, they were only a day away - and they could make it in time, if Balto held the trail.
It’s been the stuff of movies and books for ages. This point is precisely where parents looking to turn their children into readers for life - through reading as an act of rebellion - would close the book and say, ‘It’s time for you to get some sleep.’
‘Wait! What happens? Does Balto save the children?’
‘I don’t know, sweetheart. We’ll have to see.’
Siberian Huskies are the fastest mammals on land at covering distances over 10 miles. Bred to perfection by the Chukchi culture in Russia, they were introduced to this continent during the Yukon Gold Rush. Despite being half the size of malamutes, they pull faster, pound for pound. "Big dogs have longer gaits, covering more ground with each stride, but their mass makes them overheat," says Raymond Coppinger of Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, who is co-author of HOW DOGS WORK. "The smaller Siberian Husky generates less heat, and with the same skin area for dissipation, they maintain temperature." Their combination of pelvis angle, back length, and shoulder width allow for the longest possible stride as they lope, which means they have at least one paw in contact with the ground at all times. Other dogs that bound through the air as they sprint, like greyhounds, are far faster. However, those “dogs that have flights are known as floaters and are ineffective sled-pullers," says Coppinger.
To handle the brutal cold, “Siberian Huskies have lots of very fine, highly twisted secondary hairs, compared to other breeds, says veterinary pathologist Kelly Credille. These hairs form a special layer of their coat that traps warm air against the body, like a down jacket. Huskies can also use their large fuzzy tails to ensure that they breathe warm air at night. Each dog curls up into a wall and covers its nose with the fur of its tail, which acts as a warm air filter.”
What about that most incredible part of the story, that Balto held the trail despite the blizzard? It turns out that on the 1925 Serum Run the most impressive dog of all was a different one, named Togo. With just two days before the serum expired, time was melting away, so sled driver Leonhard Seppala made the decision to take a short cut, crossing the unstable Norton Sound ice sheet as a blizzard closed in. Seppala found himself effectively blind in a whiteout. In the 20 miles of open ocean ahead, the ice was shifting, leaving areas of open water as well as jagged outcroppings where ice sheets had crashed together. Seppala had to rely on Togo completely to navigate around these hazards.
Togo found his way right to the Eskimo sod igloo awaiting them on the northern shore. Siberian Huskies’ whiskers can sense changes in air flow by way of sensors at the bases called trylotich pads, which of course they have more of than do any other breed.
This was quite the breeding program the Chukchi had mastered through the generations. Intelligence and playfulness were bred in; aggression was bred out. If you were ever to run into Balto or Togo, you might not be all that impressed at first glance. They were each only about 50 or 60 pounds. Still, they were jet engines. If a Tour de France bicyclist’s V02 Max measures in at 88.2, sled dogs are at 200. Compared to humans they have 70 percent more mitochondria in their cells. Their training increases the size of their hearts by 50 percent.
The rational explanation for the 1925 miracle does not make it any less awesome. (God, there might even be a rational explanation for the Cleveland Browns’ being 7-3.) We’re getting nothing but slowly unfolding facts, but the vaccines, which will prove to be one of humanity’s greatest feats, are coming. This Thanksgiving, raise a glass to the scientists, and then go outside and stand in the cold night air. Try to hear Balto bringing ‘em in.
(quotes from a BBC Earth article)
