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Balto

Nome, Alaska experienced a diptheria outbreak in January 1925 and weather conditions prevented the city of 1,500 from obtaining vaccine by air or rail. The only hope was for a relay of 20 dog-sled teams to deliver a package of serum from 674 miles away in Nenana. The team of the last musher, Gunnar Kasson, was lead by Balto, a black and white Alaskan malamute who raced over the terrain in record time despite blizzard conditions and temperatures of 50 degrees below zero, limiting the epidemic to only five deaths.

Balto became a celebrity and toured America with his team. The Municipal Arts Society collected private donations and commissioned this sculpture by Brooklyn-born artist Frederick George Richard Roth (1872-1944). The statue was dedicated on December 17, 1925 (with Balto present) and was awarded the 1925 Speyer Prize by the National Academy of Design.

Balto died in 1933 in Cleveland, OH and his stuffed body is displayed at Cleveland's Natural History Museum.

(reference)

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
ENDURANCE FIDELITY INTELLIGENCE

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