The Cruelest Miles: The Heroic Story of Dogs
and Men in a Race Against an Epidemic

The Cruelest Miles tells the story of an outbreak of diphtheria--and a possible beginning to a deadly epidemic--in one of the most forbidding places on Earth. It's winter, 1925, in Nome, a port town in northwestern Alaska that's almost 700 miles from the nearest railroad located on the far side of mountains, rivers, and the treacherous ice of Norton Sound. One arrived by dog sled or boat; there were no roads into Nome.

Although Nome's residents may have joked that Alaska had two seasons--winter and the Fourth of July--all took winter seriously and many left on the last boat out of town before the impenetrable ice settled into place. In eighteen years of medical practice on the Seward Peninsula, Dr. Welch had never needed diphtheria antitoxin so when the last ship to arrive at port did not bring the replacement supplies for his expired medicine, he felt only a little uneasy. But, one just never knew…. Within a day of the ship's leaving, the first child died of diphtheria.

The authors weave in the history of Nome's origins (gold was discovered in 1898), the establishment of the Nome Kennel Club in 1907 that started up organized dog sled racing (fading with the end of the gold rush, Nome was again on the map as the "Dog Capital of the World"), the town's place as a way station for explorers and adventures into the Arctic's upper reaches, the war years of World War I and the town's further decline, the discovery of the antitoxin, and the development of the Siberian Husky into the heroic story of twenty men and their many dogs battling the elements in relays to lug twenty pounds of serum over nearly 700 frozen miles to save a town from oblivion.

Diphtheria is a highly contagious bacterial disease that is resilient outside of its host; it can live for weeks on candy, mitten, or table. It could also quickly spread outside the confines of Nome and on to nearby coastal villages. On 22 January 1925, Dr. Welch sent his telegram pleading for serum. The deadly influenza epidemic of 1918 had already visited the area and was still fresh in the minds of many. Immediate action was taken to arrange transportation of the diphtheria antitoxin to Nome. Sea travel was immediately ruled out; the sea was frozen. Air travel was in its infancy and the technology had not yet reached a point that guaranteed safe flying in sub-zero temperatures and conditions of near-invisibility. Dogsled teams were the only solution. No machine could yet match the endurance, speed, and reliability of experienced men and their well-trained working dogs.

Twenty men and their teams made the run in non-stop relays, regardless of the time of day or night and the weather, ranging from 18 miles to 91 miles in length. Altogether they traveled a total of 674 miles in 127 hours and 30 minutes (5.5 days). Gunnar Kaasen, with Balto as the lead dog, reached Nome on 2 February 1925 with the life-saving serum. Although several people did die of the disease before the antitoxin reached the town, it did not spread into an epidemic.

This well-researched and exciting narrative reminds us that it is not only men who make history but it is dogs as well.