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In keeping with my earlier posts, and with advanced apologies to the mods for "double posting" (unless someone responds while I am typing this!), I would like to share with you some information from the serum run, which relate to the heroism of dogs and mushers - in this case, the price suffered as a result of that (if you'll forgive the expression) "dogged" determination to carry on in the face of danger. You can find this and plenty more dramatic, truthful accounts of the experiences of the various mushers, and much more, in the book The Cruelest Miles: The Heroic Story of Dogs and Men in a Race Against an Epidemic (by Gay and Laney Salisbury)...one of the books I noted earlier. And in the book The Race To Nome: Alaska's Heroic Race To Save Lives (by Kenneth A. Ungermann).

"Wild Bill" Shannon worked his nine-member dog team hard, through the opening hours of the serum run. Only Blackie, the lead dog, had any experience. The rest had never done any sledding before, apparently. Wild Bill and Blackie, as typical of all mushers and their lead dogs of the time, worked like a well-oiled machine, pressing the team on, and picking out the trail (Shannon sometimes running up in front of the team to help break trail, choose the course, and to keep warm himself). They suffered horribly from the effects of the weather. So much so that three of Shannon's dogs, after they returned to Nenana (after completion of their part of the run) - Cub, Jack and Jet, would die. And a fourth, Bear, suffered so badly that he probably never ran on a team again.

The dogs, after the team reached the first roadhouse at the Athabascan village of Minto, were exhausted. And the four mentioned above were each bleeding the mouth. As the roadhouse owner attended the dogs (after taking care of Shannon and the serum), he found that many of them were suffering from what was known, in those days, as "lung scorching", a condition in which the mushers and roadhouse people believed the dogs' lungs were turned black as coal from frostbite. This was more conjecture than fact, as few autopsies of such dogs were ever done. Modern veterinary medicine indicates, rather, that a dog suffering from working too hard in the severe cold more likely has a pulomary hemmorhage (internal bleeding). Sustained heavy exertion in dry, minus-50-degree-Fahrenheit weather can freeze and burst the tiny blood vessels of a dog's bronchial tree (in the lungs) and damage the delicate alveoli, the tiny sacs in the lungs where the transfer of oxygen to the blood takes place. The lungs do not turn black, but fill up with blood. Although a dog finds it harder and harder to breathe, he will keep running, spurred on by his teammates, until eventually he drowns in his own blood or passes out from oxygen deprivation. In either event, he will soon be dead. The initial warning signs are bleeding from the mouth and nose, where the lining of the mucous membrane becomes brittle and cracks in the cold.

Shannon had checked on his dogs. His next stopping point would be three to four hours distant through the night, with no help along the way. He decided to leave Cub, Jack and Jet in the care of the owner of the Minto roadhouse, and continued on with the six remaining dogs, including the already compromised Bear. He knew that the roadhouse owner would take good care of them, and that he could return for them along the way. Bear could be taken out of the rotation and put in the sled the rest of the way if needed.

There is no mention of whether or not Shannon did place Bear in the sled before he reached Tolovana (the next stop). But at that point, his part in the run was over. After resting, he set out again for Minto, this time with Bear in the sled. In Minto, he picked up Cub, Jack and Jet, and placed them in the sled as well. Soon after Shannon returned to Nenana, the three had died. Bear was in bad shape, and Shannon feared for him, and didn't expect to ever run him again.

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Then there is the story of musher Charlie Evans. Along his section of the run, his two lead dogs (he was running a double, instead of single, lead...the single lead being more common in those days rather than now), which he had to borrow to flush out his team, were suffering (even though he too was often running alongside or ahead of the team). These were Alaskan Huskies, the type commonly used in dogsled racing today (such as in the Iditarod). He felt they were ill-suited to the task, but he was in a spot, and needed them. Their coats were shorter than those of Siberian huskies and Alaskan Malamutes, and the leather and rope harnesses were constricting and chafing their legs. Even worse, Evans had forgotten the rabbit skins often used by mushers to protect the groin areas of their dogs from frostbite (this being one of the few exposed, thinly-furred areas of a sled dog's body). The two lead dogs were freezing in this area as they ran, and were starting to have trouble managing.

Sometime out of the village of Koyukuk, where Evans' father had met him and warned him about the condition of the dogs, Evans turned the team to the south to head the remaining ten miles into the town of Nulato. By now, the legs of the two lead dogs were turning blue and had become swollen, burned raw by the cold and from where the harnesses had cut away the skin and fur. They had severe frostbite. Soon, one after the other, the two lead dogs dropped. Evans had to stop the team, walk up to the front, and unhitch the dogs, placing them in the sled basket. According to one account, he then strapped the harness over his shoulder and helped the remaining dogs pull the sled into Nulato over the remaining distance. After Evans pulled into the town, he carried the two lead dogs into the cabin and slumped down by the stove. Both dogs were dead. When asked about the run some fifty years later, Evans simply said "it was really cold". They had run a mere thirty miles...not the shortest distance of the run, but not terribly long given what some mushers would encounter in the run, and what they had encountered in years past on mail runs, in races, and so forth. In just that short thirty miles, through a bit of hard-pressed driving and bad weather, and a bit of carelessness on the part of the musher, two more dogs lost their lives.