ALLEN's Reviews > The Cruelest Miles: The Heroic Story of Dogs and Men in a Race Against an Epidemic

In the stormy and ultra-cold winter of 1924/25, the small and isolated town of Nome, Alaska, was caught unprepared when a diphtheria epidemic struck. (The town was supposed to keep anti-toxin stocks on hand, but somehow the distributor had failed to supply them.) As winter closed in and the epidemic worsened, it fell to town authorities to try to get fresh supplies brought in -- but how? Every winter, Nome was typically sealed off from Alaska's Interior and the more settled South, ports frozen and roads impassable. Lacking roads, snowmobiles or a coherent system of inland aviation, the two options were carrying the serum overland for hundreds of miles by dog teams (dangerous), or commissioning special flights (untested and even more dangerous). Yet at risk were dozens of local residents, mostly children, who were vulnerable to the often lethal disease.

With a background of dog-team "mushing," authors Gay Salisbury and Laney Salisbury have fashioned an interesting and solid account of the Nome rescue attempt. The authors wisely eschew verbal fireworks and let the story tell itself simply and clearly. Here's a passage about the nature of diphtheria:

Diphtheria is an airborne bacterium that thrives in the moist membranes of the throat and nose and releases a powerful toxin that makes its victims tired and apathetic. In two to five days other, more deadly symptoms would appear: a slight fever and red ulcers at the back of the throat and in the mouth. As the bacteria multiplied and more toxin was released, the ulcers thickened and expanded, forming a tough, crusty, almost leathery membrane made up of dead cells, blood clots, and dead skin. The membranes colonized ever larger portions of the mouth and the throat until it had nowhere else to go and advanced down the windpipe, slowly suffocating the victim.

Similarly, the authors do not harp on the "cute dog" aspects of famous team leaders like Togo and Balto, but let the dogs' own intuition and intelligence shine through.

While THE CRUELEST miles is a solid and worthy story, I do not feel it is a perfect book. A little more denouement is called for, how diphtheria was licked and the state became much safer with the help of permanent roads, snowmobiles (which Alaskans call "snow machines") and internal aviation -- even at the sacrifice of some of the background passages about the development of dog teams from Native antecedents and the evolution of Siberian Huskies as the dog of choice. Nonetheless, this book is well worth reading, and the selection of photographs and supplemental material is admirable.