Last week I arrived in New York City a day before Interphex began and had the rare opportunity to meet with and spend the day with my daughter, Haley. We took a stroll through Central Park where she captured these photos of the Balto sculpture - meaningless unless you read the March 16th Posting "Cold-Chain Chronicles: A Sled-Dog, A Bacterium And A Pharmaceutical Company."

Click below on attachments to view the photos. It is an inspiring piece in a perfect setting and location. Enjoy.

This is a cold-chain story of sorts, about a hero dog named Balto, a bacterium named diphtheriae and a pharmaceutical company named Merck - and how these three, completely unrelated entities, converged in a monumental and historic event that inspired one of the most unique and arduous athletic tests of our time.

The year was 1925. An epidemic of deadly Diphtheria had crippled a small town on the edge of the Bering Sea. An antitoxin for the disease, developed by Merck & Company, was on-hand but had expired. The town's only doctor was in desperate need of replacement but it did not arrive in time for winter, and the port would remain closed from ice until the spring thaw in June.

 It was late January, the middle of the frigid arctic night. The nearest serum necessary to save the population of the town of 1,400 lie across 1,000 miles of frozen wilderness.

The only way to deliver the life saving medicine was overland, ferried first by rail until the track ran out 250 miles up the line. From there, 20 volunteer dog-sled drivers relayed the serum non-stop the remaining 674 miles.

Time was of the essence. A few people had already died. Twenty-eight others were currently suffering from the insidious disease and there was only enough life-saving serum on the dog sled for 30 patients. The serum had to arrive before the threat of the highly contagious infection spread to the entire population of the region.

In what was called "The Race For Mercy", the first musher in the relay was handed the 20 pound package of serum at the train station in Nenana, the terminus of the railroad line. The temperatures were at a twenty-year low and hovered at -45C. Through the constant dim of the polar night men and dogs drove blindly against raging blizzards, bitter cold, glare ice, and rugged mountain terrain. They wove their way northward through the forests and "buffalo tunnels" and along the frozen rivers of the trail called "the far distant place" in the native Athabaskan language. Through the spectacular wilderness only the panting of dogs and the swish of the sled runners punctuated the vast stillness. From the interior, the journey crossed the barren and treacherous expanse of Norton Sound where there was no protection from the gales of blowing snow, ice-fog and shifting pack ice.

Conditions only worsened as the brave men and anxious dogs made their way northward. Mushers hands were frozen to their sleds and they had to have hot water poured over them to release them from their handles. Eddies of drifting, swirling snow passing between the dogs legs and under their bellies made them appear as if they were fording a fast-running river. Many dogs were lost to the elements and exhaustion as a result of the harsh conditions. Every few hours the teams had to stop at trail camps and thaw the serum next to fires.

The final leg of the journey, over Topok Mountain, was taken up by Gunnar Kaasen, a dog-sled veteran of 21 years. His lead dog, Balto, well known for his tireless strength and acute sense of danger, safely pulled the team over the shifting ice through visibility so poor that Kaasen could not always see the dogs harnessed closest to the sled. He was 2 miles past the town of Solomon before he even realized it. The winds were so severe that they flipped the sled and the cylinder containing the serum fell off and became buried in the snow. Kaasen acquired frostbite when he had to use his bare hands to forage for the package through the drifting snow.

Kaasen told reporters at the time: "I couldn't see the trail. Many times I couldn't even see my dogs, so blinding was the gale. I gave Balto, my lead dog, his head and trusted to him. He never once faltered. It was Balto who led the way. The credit is his."

Balto led the team into the dire town at 5:30 in the morning on the fifth day of the relay and then collapsed from exhaustion. The serum arrived without a single ampule broken. It was thawed, and by noon administered to those infected. It saved their lives and saved the town. In all, 7 people died before the antitoxin arrived - but the situation could have been much, much worse.

***

Today, a statue of Balto, commemorating his incredible feat stands near the Willowdell Arch on the main path to the Children's Zoo in New York City's Central Park (leading north, of course). In a bold pose with a harness hanging from his back and legs braced, he is perched atop a rock - panting, and surveying the distance. It stands appropriately, in glowing bronze, reflecting the love pats of countless children and appreciative adults who happen by.

Diphtheria has been all but eradicated from most countries of the world thanks to the development of vaccines by Merck, and others, and inoculation programs.

And what began in the Alaskan Territory as an epic 5 day, 674 mile, life-saving race against time, has become one of the most celebrated challenges in modern history. We recognize it as The Iditarod, "The Last Great Race On Earth." Few are familiar with its incredible origin; or that teams of dogs and hearty mushers commemorate the race for mercy by retracing the "serum run", along the 1,049 historic miles of the Iditerod Trail -from Anchorage to the Diphtheria-free town of Nome.