Animation Source Forums

Okay gang! It's been a while since I've posted any true story stuff, but I thought it was time I started pitching back in with new and interesting information for those of you who like reading about what really happened back in the depths of the harsh winter of early 1925, during the efforts to relieve Nome from its diphtheria epidemic. This effort will be on-going, if the usual drama of the site doesn't totally dishearten me for the umpteenth time, throughout the coming days, weeks, months, etc.


You have to be careful when reading stuff online or in a book. There is so much misinformation out there, that it is hard to know exactly where to turn. And many websites (or their contributors) don't list their source materials for any research they may have done (if any). And I've already talked extensively about the fact that, while the Balto movie may well be an entertaining and generally well-produced, drawn and animated product, it has done more to misrepresent what really happened back in Nome in 1925 (and on the trail during the serum run itself) than anything else on the web or in print...and has done a great disservice to history and to the men, women, children and dogs involved back then. That may seem like an extreme criticism, but given all those people and dogs went through, they deserve better than that.


Where at all possible, I always cite my resources. For the sake of clarity and record, here is a running (though not exhaustive) list of them now:


BOOKS
Gay Salisbury and Laney Salisbury. The Cruelest Miles: The Heroic Story Of Dogs And Men In A Race Against An Epidemic. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2003.

Kenneth A. Ungermann. The Race To Nome: Alaska's Heroic Race To Save Lives. Sunnyvale: Press North America/Nulbay Associates, Inc., 1963.

Elizabeth M. Ricker. Seppala: Alaskan Dog Driver. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1930. Reprinted in 1996 by Hoflin Publishing, Inc. of Wheat Ridge, Colorado.

Patricia Chargot. The Adventures Of Balto: The Untold Story Of Alaska's Famous Iditarod Sled Dog. Anchorage: Publication Consultants, 2006.

Terrence Cole. Nome: "City Of The Golden Beaches". Anchorage: The Alaska Geographic Society, 1984.


Where a reference is drawn from one of the books listed above, I would like to be able to do normal footnoting, but this particular forum doesn't support bb codes (or even phpbb codes) for superscripts (raised numbers after a quote to designate that a footnote appears at the bottom of the post) for some strange reason. Therefore, I will note them as follows, with the page number(s) noted accordingly:


The Cruelest Miles = TCM

The Race To Nome = RTN

Seppala: Alaskan Dog Driver = SDD

The Adventures of Balto = AOB

Nome: "City Of The Golden Beaches" = NGB


WEBSITES
Alaska's Digital Archives: http://vilda.alaska.edu/cdm/

Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center: http://www.anchoragemuseum.org/archives_collections/rights_reproductions.aspx

University of Alaska Fairbanks, Elmer E. Rasmuson Library: http://library.uaf.edu/apr

Alaska State Archives: http://www.archives.alaska.gov/

University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections: http://content.lib.washington.edu/


OTHER RESOURCES
Cleveland Museum of Natural History: Balto Exhibit: http://www.cmnh.org/site/AtTheMuseum/OnExhibit/PermanentExhibits/Balto.aspx

Carrie M. McLain Museum in Nome, Alaska: http://www.nomealaska.org/department/?fDD=12-0

I've always been interested in reading the Cruelest Miles, but I've never been able to get my hands on a copy of it. I once tried my local Library, but of course they didn't have it. I will have to make an effort to purchase it off Amazon sometime. Along with the adventures of Balto, I've been interested in that one too.

I'm surprised that your local library doesn't have a copy of The Cruelest Miles. I guess it depends upon the size of the library...whether it's local or municipal.

But you will enjoy it if you get it off of Amazon! It's worth the purchase! The other, Adventures of Balto, isn't bad...there are some minor errors in Chargot's research, but overall it is a nice book!

Which book do you think is the best(both story and historical accuracy) and was any of those books translated to different languages?

I'd say, of the four of them, The Cruelest Miles is certainly the best resource...though The Race To Nome was researched and written when many of the serum run participants were still alive to give accounts (even if there are a few notable errors in it).

Sadly, I don't believe any of these were translated into other languages. But you could check around...

It is a shame that most of these books are not sold for retail in my country. And I would not allow myself to commit to a piracy website whatsoever. Too bad......

Despite your last response to my other post, is The Adventure Of Balto Book more of a children's book? I only ask because I've noted that it only has 80 pages, and I remember seeing it for sale at the Cleveland museum gift shop back in 2006. I'm considering purchasing another book to go along side my copy of The Cruelest Miles, but I wasn't sure if this book would be worth the money. I'm also considering Seppala: Alaskan Dog Driver.

EDIT: I went ahead and purchased Seppala: Alaskan Dog Driver, but I would still like to hear your thoughts on The Adventures Of Balto.

There's a photo of the author of The Adventures of Balto book on the back cover. Next to that is a caption providing a little bit about the author. One sentence says "This is her first book for children." It also identifies her as a staff writer for a national news magazine for kids.

This book has some noteworthy errors in it. A couple of examples are: (1) The year Balto was born was reported as 1922. (2) Kaasen and the dogs are still on tour in December, 1926.

To be fair, the Balto book did get it right in some areas where others got it wrong. One example is that it was actress Clara Horton who appeared with Balto at the Los Angeles City Hall ceremony in early April, 1925. The Cruelest Miles book got this wrong when it reported the actress to be Mary Pickford. Several Los Angeles papers covered this event at the time and all of them reported that it was Clara Horton who was behind Balto in the photo, and who presented the flower arrangement to the dog. You can find this photo towards the end of the photo section of The Cruelest Miles book, after page 144. The local papers also identified the other people who were immediately surrounding Balto. From bottom left going clockwise - actor Bert Lytell, Los Angeles Mayor George Cryer, actress Clara Horton, and Gunnar Kaasen. Mayor Cryer presented Balto with the key to the city in the form of a bone.