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

It was 1925 and at times up to 70 degrees below zero in Alaska. Nome Alaska, at the edge of the Bering Sea, just 2 degrees below the Artic Circle, was in the midst of a diphtheria epidemic. The last boat of supplies did not have the million units of serum on board. There would be a long cold unprepared winter a head of them.
In 1925 there was no air travel to Alaska in the winter - their were only open air cock pits and it was uncertain if a plane could even fly in those cold conditions. The railway was very new to Alaska and came no where close to Nome or the interior of Alaska. The only mode of travel in the cold severe winter of 1925 was sled dog.
This non fiction novel brings to life the way cities, villages and outposts were cut off from any form of communication sans the occasional musher and dog sled that braved the treacherous conditions to make a trip to the furthest reaches of the state.
Salisbury introduces us to conditions during the winter of 1925, the normal life and burdens of the sparse Alaskan population, the men who risked their lives and the lives of their best friends - the dogs who pull the sleds.
The dogs become a large part of this story. The dogs are a large part of the lives of the men who transported the serum to Nome during 70 degrees below zero temperatures and blowing blizzards so bad the musher could not see and gave his life and trust to the dogs that lead him.
The story finishes up with the death of the sled dog as transportation and the birth of the Iditerod. It also has a short appendix which details what happened to the various people and dogs that so famously traveled the dog trails in Alaska.
I came to love a couple of the dogs so well detailed in this story. Their legacy is unmatched today.