100 years ago today, Balto’s statue was unveiled in Central Park, New York City.
While the statue bears Balto’s name — the lead dog who guided the final team carrying life-saving serum into Nome — it stands as a memorial to all the sled dogs of the Great Serum Run, one of the most heroic rescue missions in North American history.
In January 1925, a deadly diphtheria outbreak threatened the remote community of Nome, Alaska. With planes grounded by brutal winter conditions and ships frozen in ice, the only way to deliver antitoxin was a nearly 700-mile relay across Arctic wilderness — completed by more than 20 mushers and their teams of sled dogs.
If you’ve seen the animated film Balto, you’ve seen that statue at the movie’s close. If you’ve seen Disney’s extraordinary film Togo (sadly no longer streaming), you know more of the story — and of Togo’s greatness.
When I speak to certain audiences, I often reflect on this:
I’m quite sure the 20 mushers who stepped forward never imagined they and their dogs would become legends, spoken of a century later. They were simply doing what they could. Doing what they believed was right.
And from that, heroes were born.
When Hank and I stood before Balto’s statue for the first time a few years ago, we both shed tears. The dogs in our kennel carry the same DNA, the same heart, the same intelligence, and the same indomitable spirit.
As Balto’s plaque reads:
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
A century later, the story still matters.
Its legacy — and its lessons — live on.
They live on in today’s huskies and mushers, and in anyone who leads with service, love, and the courage to step forward when it matters most.
