Gunnar kaasen biography of alberta

Gunnar Kaasen, a Norwegian-born sled dog musher, and his lead dog Balto became legendary figures for their heroic role in the Serum Run to Nome, Alaska.

Gunnar Kaasen, a Norwegian-born sled dog musher, and his lead dog Balto became legendary figures for their heroic role in the Serum Run.

Seppala and Togo missed the limelight that went to his assistant, Gunnar Kaasen, who drove the dog team led by Balto into Nome.

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Mush! Alberta crew battled snow — then no snow — to shoot Disney dogsled adventure Togo

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In January of , stoic Norwegian Leonhard Seppala braced for the storm of the century as he set out on a dogsled led by his loyal husky Togo from Nome, Alaska. It was a desperate, life-risking trek to pick up a serum to battle a diphtheria outbreak in his adopted hometown.

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In early October of , stoic director Ericson Core and the cast and crew of the adventure film Togo set out to shoot in Kananaskis when Alberta was struck by, you guessed it, the storm of the century. Was it welcomed as a happy coincidence by a filmmaker striving for ultimate authenticity? No, it was actually ironically ill-timed. At this point in the shoot, the plan

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The children of Nome were dying in January Infected with diphtheria, they wheezed and gasped for air, and every day brought a new case of the lethal respiratory disease. Nome’s lone physician, Dr. Curtis Welch, feared an epidemic that could put the entire village of 1, at risk. He ordered a quarantine but knew that only an antitoxin serum could ward off the fast-spreading disease.

The nearest batch of the life-saving medicin, however, rested more than 1, miles away in Anchorage. Nome’s ice-choked harbor made sea transport impossible, and open-cockpit airplanes could not flyga eller fly undan in Alaska’s subzero temperatures. With the nearest utbildning station nearly miles away in Nenana, canine power offered Nome its best hope for a snabb delivery.

Sled dogs regularly beat Alaska’s snowy trails to deliver mail, and the territory’s governor, Scott C. Bone, recruited the best drivers and dog teams to scen a round-the-clock relay to transport the serum from Nenana to Nome. On the night of January 27, ,

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Mushers and dogs braved a horrific Alaska winter to deliver lifesaving serum years ago

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — The Alaska Gold Rush town of Nome faced a bleak winter. It was hundreds of miles from anywhere, cut off by the frozen sea and unrelenting blizzards, and under siege from a contagious disease known as the “strangling angel” for the way it suffocated children.

Now, years later, Nome is remembering its saviors — the sled dogs and mushers who raced for more than five days through hypothermia, frostbite, gale-force winds and blinding whiteouts to deliver life-saving serum and free the community from the grip of diphtheria.

Among the events celebrating the centennial of the “Great Race of Mercy” are lectures, a dog-food drive and a reenactment of the final leg of the relay, all organized by the Nome Kennel Club.

Remembering the mushers and dogs for ‘heroic effort’

“There’s a lot of fluff around celebrations like this, but we wanted to remember the mushers and their dogs wh