About book The Cruelest Miles: The Heroic Story Of Dogs And Men In A Race Against An Epidemic (2005)
Review by Suzanne Ridgway published in Working Nurse Magazine (www.workingnurse.com), 2006 In January 1925, the New York Times announced, “Diphtheria Rages in Nome; No Antitoxin; Remedy Sought by Plane on 50-Day Dog Trail.” For almost a week, newspapers around the country followed a drama unfolding in the desolation of northern Alaska. A five-person medical team in Nome quarantined ailing families and watched their small, expired batch of diphtheria serum dwindle as they treated more and more patients every day. Gay and Laney Salisbury, cousins and first-time authors, extensively researched the events surrounding this potential epidemic and the efforts to get more serum to Nome. They tell this story in The Cruelest Miles: The Heroic Story of Dogs and Men in a Race Against an Epidemic. During half the year, Nome is icebound and 80 years ago was almost impossible to reach quickly. Although there was talk of an air shipment to meet this emergency, in the end the unreliable primitive mechanics of early biplanes rendered that option impractical. Transporting the vitally needed serum fell to a method that was tried and true in the Alaskan wasteland – the dogsled team. In response to Dr. Curtis Welch’s urgent telegrams to Juneau and the U.S. Public Health Service requesting serum, various officials arranged for high-speed relays of top-notch dogsled drivers and their teams across ancient transportation trails. The authors of The Cruelest Miles say that this decision “revealed a fundamental truth about Alaskan life: In 1925, the machine had not yet been built that could match the endurance, speed, and reliability of men and dogs.”1 The book leaves Dr. Welch and his nurses waiting passively for the serum. The drama takes place out on the frozen trails during what turned out to be the harshest winter in 20 years. The skill and courage of the volunteer “mushers” and their beloved dogs is the main story of this particular book. How they managed to move the serum across 674 miles in blizzard winds and temperatures of 60 degrees below is told in well-documented detail. The unbelievable harshness of the conditions and the strategies used to cope with them makes this good reading for anyone who is intrigued by the limits of human -- and canine -- endurance. There are extensive pages of detail pertaining to background: the founding of Nome, the history of the All Alaska Sweepstakes dog races, the biographies of many of the principal drivers, the culture of the Eskimos and how their finely-tuned survival skills made life in Alaska possible. There are entire chapters devoted to Alaskan history, climate, geography, and anthropology, and the breeding, care and feeding of the highly valued sled dogs. Those most likely to enjoy this narrative are students of those subjects and dog-lovers. The determination of the men and their dogs to get through despite the challenges is inspiring. As the New York Sun declared in an editorial after the successful relays, “Science made the antitoxin that is in Nome today, but science could not get it there.” Dismissing mechanical conveyances and motors that fail in the presence of the elements, it honored the “oldest of all motors, the heart, whose fuel is blood and whose spark is courage, [that] never stalls but once.”2 The authors are granddaughters of a doctor and as girls enjoyed playing on the statue of Balto, the last dog in the run, that stands in Central Park today. 1Salisbury, Gay, and Salisbury, Laney, The Cruelest Miles: The Heroic Story of Dogs and Men in a Race Against an Epidemic, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2003, p.111.
There are a few nonfiction books that are well-researched and well-written that they leave lasting impressions on readers, and I think ‘The Cruellest Miles’ is among those books. ‘The Cruellest Miles’ retells the fateful events that unfolded in the Alaskan city of Nome during the 1925 diphtheria epidemic outbreak while at the same time highlighting Alaska itself as it is caught between tradition and modernity.There are two things I like about the book. First, the Salisbury’s did well in consolidating the written as well as oral accounts of the events in 1925, including Nome’s early settlement. It was more than just a narration of what happened in Nome, it narrated what happened to the people who lived and settled there. Besides, the story was grippingly told that, as exaggerated as it may sound, it barely felt like reading a piece of history. Second, the Salisbury’s effectively placed Nome’s plight in the bigger Alaskan picture, much like putting a piece in a puzzle. That time, when Alaska was recently annexed as a territory of the US, the native settlers, the Indians and Eskimos, were bombarded with Western influences, threatening their long-held traditions and customs. As was depicted in the book, this friction between tradition and modernity was evident in the decision whether to use the dog teams or the airplane to deliver the antitoxin for the disease. The former took much time as what the latter can cover, but in the end, tradition took the trophy.While there are a handful of typographical errors, ‘The Cruellest Miles’ is in overall a good read. I give it five stars.
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Gay & Laney Salisbury wrote a very readable book on the "original" Iditarod. In the winter of 1925, a diptheria epidemic caught Nome without any up-to-date serum. There were no roads or railroads, and the ice on the Bering Sea prevented ships from coming until spring. Mail-delivery mushers were organized to relay the serum to Nome. This account is a fascinating case of truth being stranger (and better) than fiction.I enjoyed all the background on Nome, the Athabaskan and Inuit tribes, and dog sledding. There was also a lot of very interesting triva. For example: In Alaska, the last mail delivery by dog sled was in 1963. The isolated areas now receive their mail by plane.I read this on Open Library, an awesome site for reading, although a lot of recent books are not availabe.
—Melissa
A diphtheria epidemic was starting in Nome, Alaska in 1925 and antitoxin was desperately needed. Nome, located close to the Arctic Circle, was no longer accessible by boat since the Bering Sea was already frozen. Some serum was transported from Anchorage to Nenana by train. Then a relay of twenty dog sled teams ran day and night for 674 miles to bring the lifesaving serum to Nome. The heroic men and their dogs traveled through blizzards and exceptionally frigid conditions--down to minus 60 degrees.The authors provided lots of interesting background material about diphtheria, Nome, the Gold Rush, and the Native Alaskans. They also discussed the dog sled teams, especially the lead dogs, and the responsibilities of the drivers. The second half of the book was especially exciting as the teams made the harrowing journey. Exceptionally intelligent lead dogs, such as Togo from Leonhard Seppala's team, pulled them out of potentially deadly situations. The two authors, cousins Gal Salisbury and Laney Salisbury, wrote a book that is both informative and full of human (and canine) drama.
—Connie
I saw this at my local library not long after my children had watched a show called Balto. I knew the little cartoon was based on a true story and when I read the book I realized it was a pretty embellished interpretation of what happened. (And I'm not just talking about making the animals 'human'!)Balto actually was part of the last team of dogs to bring the medicene to the small town of Nome. While that team was heroic like all the teams it was only a small part of a huge effort and sacrifice of more than one man and more than one team. Some dogs died along the 'race' to help the children. I really enjoyed the style of the authors' wrinting and I enjoyed the amazing details that brought the stoy to life. When I read the immense cold of those days it's pretty incredible they just went on without hesitation. The interesting thing is most of the men who sacrificed their lives never really seemed to take much credit it for it. Balto and his team driver Gunnar Kaasen did become famous for a while. Togo the dog made a villian in the childrens movie is really a hero in the true story and did more than Balto. Anyways I still like the children's movie because it teaches some things about diptheria and human caring and kindness and even the loyalty of animals, but I now wish they hadn't made Togo such a villian. I let my kids now some of the true story! I also enjoyed reading bits of the story that helped them visualize the struggles the people were up against and why the old planes available were no good in that intense cold. I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in a true gripping tale of american history.
—Mary
