Gunnar Kaasen
By Katelyn
In the winter of 1925, in Nome Alaska, many children had a fever and sore throat. They all had Diptheria, which is a disease that attacks people's lungs and throat and is contagious. The closest medicine that was available was in Anchorage, Alaska which was 670 miles away. The trains couldn't get to Nome and the two planes were dismantled for the winter. The decision was made that the only reliable delivery method was to use dog teams.
The medicine left Anchorage by train on Monday, January 26 and taken to Nenana. There it was transferred to a musher and dog team. It took 5 dogs to a team and 20 dog teams to deliver the medicine to Nome. There were many dangers to the journey. Some of them were freezing temperatures, starving wolves, snowdrifts, driving in the darkness, thin ice, and a blizzard. The last dog team's musher was Gunnar Kaasen. He drove the last 53 miles to Nome. His lead dog's name was Balto. A statue is memorialized in Central Park in New York City. It took one week to move the medicine from Anchorage to Nome, but it got there successfully and many lives were saved.
Sources
www.iditarod.com
www.juturna.com/photo/alaska_iditarod99htm