Originally published in The Nome Nugget, Summer 1995
The public relations woman at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History knew why I was calling as soon as I said where I was from. After all, Nome and Cleveland go together like reindeer steak and eggs. She wouldn’t have dreamed of saying, “You’re from Nome, Alaska? So what?” She knew in an instant I’d want to see Balto.
The Cleveland Museum is connected by a cord of good will to our little Alaskan town because of the Great Serum Race. After Gunnar Kaasen and his dog sled team delivered that precious canister of diphtheria serum to Dr. Welch’s hospital door on February 2, 1925, a little dark sled dog named Balto became a national hero. He and some fellow sledding dogs were exhibited to Americans across the nation for several years afterwards.
The shine then faded and a cheap Los Angeles museum kept the dogs for amusement. Clevelander George Kimbell saw them there, organized a massive fundraising effort, and sent the dogs to a better life in Cleveland. A volunteer at the Museum recalled the frenzy that came over the local schoolchildren and how she and her little girlfriends helped raise pennies to go fetch Balto and his mates. When Balto died in 1933, his body was stuffed and mounted in a plexiglass exhibit box where it usually stays in “The Cold Room” down in the museum basement.
Our tour guide, botanist Jim Bissel, took us down past the multi-colored boiler pipes through a locked door and a plastic drape to enter the Cold Room. It’s kept cold enough so carpet beetles can’t survive and eat fur and hair. Jim explained to us that the stuffed animals from exhibits upstairs are circulated down into the Cold Room to remove parasites.
Balto himself was in front of two gigantic grizzly bears–poised to attack as they always are–amidst a profusion of fish, reptiles, skeletons, and glassy-eyed heads with fantastic horns. I don’t think Balto would have liked all the animals surrounding him, especially those bears. He’s kind of a small dog, after all. But Balto’s coat was radiant, a mahogany color shimmering with gold and bronze highlights. It looked like someone had just given him a good brushing and a rubdown. He looked healthy and, well, happy for a dog who’s been dead for 62 years.
Every five years Clevelanders bring Balto upstairs and have a spring festival commemorating the anniversary of the big serum race. But this March and April another exhibit at the museum–“The Dinosaurs of Jurassic Park”–was bringing in the crowds. The museum staff didn’t want Steven Spielberg to overshadow Balto, so the museum’s “A Race for Life” exhibit will begin October 20. And a little dog, a little town, and a great race will be remembered again.
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