In January 1925 diphtheria broke out in Nome, Alaska. The hospital's antitoxin had expired, the sea was frozen until summer, and the few planes of the day could not fly that far in winter. Dr Curtis Welch telegraphed for help. 300,000 units of antitoxin, glass vials wrapped in quilts, about 20 pounds, came by train to the railhead at Nenana, and on the night of 27 January the mail trail took it on: about twenty drivers, many of them Athabascan and Iñupiaq mail carriers, and about 150 dogs, relaying it about 674 miles in five and a half days, in cold the drivers put at 50 below and worse. They warmed it by roadhouse stoves on the way. Leonhard Seppala and his twelve-year-old leader Togo ran the longest and most dangerous leg, across the ice of Norton Sound, and the ice broke up and went out to sea after they had crossed. On the last leg, in a blizzard, a gust overturned Gunnar Kaasen's sled and the serum went into the snow; he dug it out with his bare hands. His team, with Balto in the lead, came down Front Street at 5:30 in the morning on 2 February. The serum had frozen solid; thawed, it worked. At least five people died, and the doctor believed the Native camps had many more cases than were ever counted.
Told the way Lotte Reiniger's silhouette films tell a story, after her Thumbelina (1954): black cut-outs on a lit table, a small thing carried through a world too big for it, from one carrier to the next.
What were you once trusted to carry, and who handed it to you?
Sources: The Nome Nugget (1925, and Diana Haecker's centenary history of 2025), Gay and Laney Salisbury's The Cruelest Miles (2003), Leonhard Seppala's memoir with Elizabeth Ricker (1930), the National Park Service and the Associated Press (2025).
Film and music: ours, an homage made independently of the makers of Thumbelina. Sounds: recordings by karlis.stigis, Vrymaa, craigsmith, schulmancreative, kyles, IENBA, j1987, Sheyvan, schneidi67, Glitchedtones, mhtaylor67, keweldog, Mewsel, timothyd4y, SukritSen, stephenbist and nvmbky (CC0) on Freesound, and by Joseph Sardin (CC0) on BigSoundBank. Piano samples: Apple Logic; orchestra: Apple GarageBand; cello: University of Iowa Electronic Music Studios. Font: Courier Prime (OFL).