Gone to the Dogs

The year is 1925 and a sudden diphtheria outbreak has shocked the remote community of Nome, Alaska Territory. Short on effective anti-serum, the community begs for assistance to get fresh serum to Nome to save the lives of dozens of children who face certain death without it. The territorial Governor, Scott C. Bone, is under enormous pressure to use the modern technology of airplanes to get the serum to Nome as quickly as possible, but Governor Bone is apprehensive. A true Alaskan, he knows the only reliable means of transportation across the forbidding tundra of America's Last Frontier lies not with the modern technology of airplanes, but with the ancient technology of dogsleds. A corps of crusty sledsmen are assembled, none more famous than the film's main character, Leonhard "Sepp" Seppala, who will travel nearly 250 of the 679 miles of terrain to bring the badly needed serum to his home city of Nome. Yet as the "Race of Mercy" commences, the weather turns bad, and the public mood even worse. The story creates a national sensation in the United States, and everyone, including President Calvin Coolidge himself, begs Governor Bone to call of the silly dogsled race and use airplanes. In the end, a blizzard unlike anything any Alaskan has ever seen hits the trail, forcing (or so we think) the race to be halted. Yet the sledsmen press on, in defiance of all order and reason, because, "if they remember us for anything... they're going to remember us for this." "Gone To The Dogs" is a heartwarming, feel-good story of the old-fashioned type, made all the more poignant by the fact that it is a TRUE STORY of nineteenth century rugged determination in the face of modern 20th century epidemic.