36 pages • 1 hour read

Balto and the Great Race

Nonfiction | Book | Middle Grade | Published in 1999

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Foreword-Part 1, Chapter 4

Part 1, Chapters 5-12

Part 2, Chapter 13-Afterword

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

The Alaskan Wilderness

The Alaskan wilderness is the most prominent motif in the story of Balto and the Great Race. It presents the most significant obstacle that everyone involved in the efforts to save the people of Nome must face. It is isolated, cold, and expansive, and the city of Nome was located 650 miles away from the nearest train tracks in 1925. Added to the usual challenges that life in Alaska presents, the winter of 1925 was particularly severe and fell on the state “like an iron blanket” (9). It brought far more snow, wind, and storms than usual, but when the serum crisis hit the city of Nome, the rough Alaskan wilderness did not dampen the resolve of the mushers and their dogs to transport the serum in five days. The journey that the mushers and their dogs took was based along mail routes between various towns, and it was a journey that usually required two months to complete, but with the risk of death inevitable if they didn’t act quickly, the people of Alaska completed the serum run in less than a week.

Along the journey, both Seppala and Kaasen, along with their dogs, have to watch out for a variety of problems—many of which they encounter. Perhaps the biggest risk of the event is taken when Seppala decides to cross Norton Sound, a bay known for its treacherous conditions:

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The freezing waters of the Bering Sea rush in to fill the U [of the Norton Sound] with pack ice. […] The wide plateau of ice was unprotected by hills or trees and gave no shelter from the wind or the blinding sun. The water beneath the ice, nudged by the currents of the Bering Sea, rose and fell. Often, the ice moved, too. A slab of ice, with dogs and men on top, could break off from the pack and float out to sea (39).

The Alaskan wilderness also presents the issue of predators such as moose who are known to attack and kill teams of dogs, the eternal darkness in winter, and the vast distance between points of safety. Dogs like Balto and Togo are born to navigate and survive the cold of Alaska, and when Balto is tasked with leading the lost team home, he does so without faltering. Balto knows and can sense the land around him as if it were an extension of his own body.

1920s Technology and Medicine

The technological and medicinal conditions of the 1920s are an important motif in the story of the serum run. Life in the 1920s was challenging, and this was exponentially worse for people living in isolated, cold areas like western Alaska. Nome was not only cut off from the world physically, but also had no telephones—only telegraphs. Thus, when the serum crisis hit, Dr. Welch relied on the telegraph to send and receive messages about the town’s need for serum. An illustration shows Dr. Welch sitting in his hospital with his face lit by the glow of an oil lamp, indicating that electricity was still a luxury at the time. Another important aspect of 1920s technology was the presence of dog sledding teams to transport goods and mail. These teams prevailed against all odds.

Added to the technological barriers of the time period was the lack of knowledge and resources in medicine. The field was in full development but had a long way to go, especially in terms of disease prevention, and no vaccine yet existed for diphtheria. Instead, people relied on avoiding transmission, and if they did contract it, they required treatment via an anti-toxin serum. This serum was often in short supply during the 1910s and 1920s as diphtheria spread across the continent, but the shortage of Nome is perhaps the most well-known example.

Light and Dark

Light and dark is a motif that appears in subtle ways throughout the story. Alaska is located in the northernmost part of the world, and thus in the winter gets very little sunlight. As a result, the majority of the journey that the mushers and dogs undertake is through a dark night, and the rest of the time they are faced with the blinding sun that reflects off the snow, often making it impossible to see or distinguish the land from the sky. As Kaasen’s team traverses the night with Balto leading the way, they pass by Solomon and Port Safety, both of which are dark either due to the blizzard or the absence of lights. Contrasting with this, the lights of the city of Nome remain on at all times as a beacon for the mushers and a reminder to the people to maintain hope. When Kaasen’s team arrives safely in Nome with the serum, it is just as the sun breaks through the night, and “in Nome’s tiny hospital, the light in Dr. Welch’s office suddenly flicked on” (80), symbolizing success and optimism.