The Dogs Who Saved Nome, Alaska

HISTORY This Week

The HISTORY® Channel

History, Education, Society & Culture

4.6 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 23 January 2023

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

January 27, 1925. Musher “Wild Bill” Shannon and his team of sled dogs race off into the frigid Alaskan night. He’s carrying a package of life-saving serum, wrapped in fur to keep it from freezing. There’s no time to waste: nearly 700 miles away, in the snowed-in town of Nome, children are dying of diphtheria. Twenty mushers and hundreds of dogs are about to take part in an almost superhuman effort to ferry desperately needed medicine across the howling Alaskan wilderness. Who were they, and what did they endure to reach their goal? And as they pressed on, how did their efforts grip the nation?

Special thanks to our guests, Pam Flowers, author of Togo and Leonhard, and Bob Thomas, author of Leonhard Seppala: The Siberian Dog and The Golden Age of Sleddog Racing 1908-1941.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The History Channel, Original Podcast.
0:04.8	History this week, January 27, 1925.
0:13.2	I'm Sally Helm.
0:17.2	The temperature is hovering around minus 50 degrees.
0:22.7	So cold that sharp ice crystals form as you breathe.
0:26.6	It feels like a beasting to the nose.
0:28.6	So cold that exposing your bare flesh to the air would feel like a burn.
0:33.1	Like a hot iron pressed against your skin.
0:35.7	In fact, that skin might actually start steaming as the water vapor that's always flowing through your body was cooled out by the cold.
0:44.7	Leave your hand in the air too long and pretty soon?
0:47.6	Well, say goodbye to that hand.
0:49.9	Lost to frostbite.
0:51.8	Things are different at minus 50 degrees.
0:55.0	If you have to be outside exposed to the elements, there is simply no room for error.
1:04.1	In the railway station in Ninana, Alaska, Wild Bill Shannon is waiting for a train.
1:10.8	He is well acquainted with the harshness of the environment.
1:14.7	He wears thick gloves and a knee-length bare skin coat.
1:18.3	And he watches the trucks anxious, waiting for a very important delivery.
1:26.2	Ninana is located roughly in the center of Alaska.
1:30.0	674 miles by trail to the west is the town of Nome.
1:35.2	And there are terrifying reports coming out of Nome about children dying.
1:42.1	The town has been struck by an outbreak of diphtheria, a disease that leaves its victims gasping
	...

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