Hard Telling Not Knowing each week tries to answer your burning questions about why things are the way they are in Maine — specifically about Maine culture and history, both long ago and recent, large and small, important and silly. Send your questions to [email protected].
Generations of kids have grown up hearing the story of Balto, the Siberian husky who in 1925 led a team of sled dogs on the last leg of a perilous journey through Alaska to deliver a shipment of diphtheria serum to the city of Nome, saving countless lives in the process.
In reality, though Balto was on one of the legs of the race, the true hero dog of the famed “great race of mercy” was Togo, another husky who led his team for more than a third of the 674-mile race. Balto got all the credit, but Togo was the one who did much of the work.
Togo was born in Alaska, but he spent his final years in Maine, living a “life of luxury” at the Poland Springs Resort in his own special kennel, where he sired hundreds of purebred Siberian huskies. Last year, a statue was unveiled of Togo in the town of Poland Springs, honoring the heroic dog and his long standing connection to Maine.
When Togo was born in 1913, he was a mischievous puppy. His owner, legendary Norwegian-American musher Leonhard Seppala, believed he was not suited to sled dog life. He gave him away to be a house dog, but little Togo jumped through a glass window at his new owner’s house and ran home to Seppala’s house, which convinced him that perhaps the dog was capable of being a part of a sled team.
By the time Togo was eight months old, Seppala said he believed the dog was a prodigy. By the time he was five, he was a full-time lead dog, whom Seppala said was incredibly intelligent and had saved his life and the lives of his fellow dog teammates on numerous occasions in the treacherous Alaskan wilderness.
Togo was 12 years old January 1925 when he led Seppala’s team in the Great Race of Mercy, in which 20 mushers and more than 100 dogs relayed over 300,000 batches of diphtheria serum to Nome, Alaska, covering 674 miles in the middle of the brutal Arctic winter. Seppala’s team alone covered 260 of those miles, with Togo in the lead. The last 54-mile leg was run by Gunnar Kaasen’s team, led by Balto, also owned by Seppala, though Seppala himself claimed it was actually a dog named Fox who led most of that final run.
As word spread worldwide about the heroic dogs and mushers, Seppala’s huskies became celebrities and he toured North America with them throughout 1925 and 1926. The media hoopla focused on Balto, however, something Seppala lamented for the rest of his life. While a statue was erected of Balto in Central Park in New York City and, eventually, a Disney movie would be made about him, Seppala felt Togo never got the credit he deserved.
“I never had a better dog than Togo,” Seppala told the National Park Service in 1960. “His stamina, loyalty and intelligence could not be improved upon. Togo was the best dog that ever traveled the Alaska trail.”
In 1927, after competing in the Poland Springs Sled Dog Derby in Maine, Seppala partnered with Elizabeth Ricker of Poland Springs Resort to start a Siberian husky kennel at the hotel and recreation facility. There, Togo became the sire of hundreds of puppies. It’s estimated that the large majority of Siberian huskies in the U.S. today are descended from Togo. If you’ve got a purebred husky, there’s a high likelihood that Togo is one of its grandparents from many generations back.
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In his last year, Togo spent most of his time sleeping by the fireplace at Ricker’s house. Ricker wrote a book about him, “Togo’s Fireside Reflections,” and sold copies “signed” by the dog with an inked paw print. In December 1929, Togo died with Ricker and Seppala by his side at the age of 16. Seppala had Togo’s body preserved, and his mounted skin is held at the Iditarod Sled Dog Race Museum in Wasilla, Alaska.
In the following decades, Togo’s accomplishments continued to be overshadowed by Balto, though in more recent years that’s begun to change.
In 2019, another Disney movie, “Togo,” was released, starring Willem Dafoe as Seppala and husky Diesel as Togo — who himself was a descendent of the famous dog. One of the only inaccuracies in the movie is the fact that Togo is seen living out the end of his days with Seppala, when in reality he spent most of his time with Ricker in Maine.
In 2021, Maine musher Jonathan Hayes undertook a 285-mile sled dog journey across Maine to raise money for a statue of Togo to be erected at Poland Springs Resort. Hayes, who runs Poland Springs Seppala Kennels in Fort Kent, where he has a team of Seppala huskies, also made a documentary about the run.
The bronze statue of Togo, designed by Maine artist David Smus, was unveiled in September 2022. It’s a tribute not just to the long legacy of Leonhard Seppala’s legendary huskies in Maine, but also to one amazing dog whose determination saved the lives of thousands.