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Summary: An absorbing read for hot summer days!
Review: I love Alaska and I love dogs, so this book couldn't be more perfect as far as I am concerned. The story itself is amazing, and the authors cover all the bases to create a rich picture of both Alaska at the time and of the race to Nome. It's a historical narrative and an adventure story rolled into one. I also have to say that I disagree with the Times review (obviously the author wished she had written this book herself and so was biased). It's a fast-paced story, exciting and captures the people and places (and dogs!) quite well.
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Summary: A Wonderful Exciting Book
Review: I loved this book! The authors give us so much interesting backround information that the actual serum delivery becomes even more dramatic. The style and story-telling in this book reminded me a lot of Seabiscuit.Read this book and you'll learn a lot about Alaska in addition to learning the story of the great serum run. I found it hard to put down.
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Summary: I really enjoyed this book
Review: I loved this book. I learned so much from it. The story of the diphtheria epidemic and the dog sled relay are of course the main part of the story, but there is also much in here on the history of Alaska, its natives, gold rushes, and other history related to the story. Others here complained about its being disjointed, but that is part of what I enjoyed so much. This story was HUGE in the 1920s. Now it is almost forgotten by many. I think it is important to keep this story alive, and this book does a great job.
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Summary: Balto or Togo??? Answer: All the Dogs & Their Drivers!!!
Review: In New York's Central Park, there stands a statue of a dog named Balto, one of the canine heroes whose story is told in this wonderful book. In 1925, the town of Nome, Alaska, was gripped by a diptheria epidemic, and only timely intervention by a series of heroic dogs and their drivers saved the population from almost certain extinction. Viewed from the perspective of a lower-48-states citizen of 2005, we may wonder what's the big deal? What about vaccinations? Well, as the authors make abundantly clear in their well-researched work, mandatory DPT inoculations (diptheria, pertussus, tetanus) for all schoolchildren did not come about until many years later. Furthermore, Nome in 1925 was a barren outpost of civilization, literally isolated from the rest of the world by frozen seas for most of the year and hundreds of miles of trackless tundra the year round. In addition, airplanes had been invented, but with January winds of minus 40 degrees whipping the pilots in their open cockpits, air rescues were hazardous even in the best of conditions. Finally, the available supplies of vaccine in Nome were aged and dwindling, and would only last a few more days at best. Given these conditions, not to mention the raging blizzards, whiteouts, unstable ice, exhaustion, and a race against time and the elements, it's a wonder the drivers and their four-footed friends prevailed at all. (Plus, the character of the heroes was best exemplified by the attitude of one of the drivers, who referred to his herculean efforts as being "all in a day's work"!) Once the reader finishes this well-told tale, he or she will understand that the statue erected in Central Park honors not only Balto, but Togo, Fox, and the other brave dogs, not to mention the valiant drivers, doctors, nurses, locomotive engineers (the first part of the serum run was on the train from Seward through Anchorage to Fairbanks, which was as far as the tracks ran in those days), roadhouse (rest stop) keepers, and all the heroic individuals that made such a odyssey possible. Indeed, so impressive was this mission, with it's triumph of time-tested Native methods of travel when technology itself proved inadequate, that the Iditarod dog race was started to commemorate this feat, lest we never forget the time when Mankind was dependent on his wits and his faithful canine friends for survival, particularly in the frozen North.
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Summary: Man against Nature
Review: In the winter of 1925, a diptheria epidemic broke out in the remote community of Nome, Alaska. Nome had no road connections with inland Alaskan cities and towns. It had no rail connection. During summer months ships arrived in Nome carrying passengers and freight. However, in the winter this became impossible as the ocean water in the Bering Strait turned into ice. The medical establishment in Nome had only a small outdated supply diptheria serum. This book recounts the incredible story of how dogsleds carried diptheria serum 800 miles from Tanana to Nome under the most impossible conditions. The tempatures were often 50 degrees below zero (or lower). Oftentimes, windchill made this even worse. Despite the horrendous conditions the dogs and their drivers persevered and carried enough diptheria serum to Nome to stop the epidemic from spredding. This is an incredible tale of people faced with a catastrophe who respond by giving 110% effort to solve the problem. The dogsled drivers are the true heroes in this story and we get a chance to learn about them and their dogs. Anyone who is fascinated by man's attempts to battle harsh environmental conditions and harsh weather will love this book.
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Summary: Very well told story and meticulously researched
Review: Laney and Gay Salisbury crafted an exciting and informative take on the Alaskan dog sledding run to deliver a diptheria treatment to Nome, which was facing an epidemic, in 1925. The Cruelest Miles explained how and why the trip was so difficult and the heroic efforts of the dog sledders to deliver the antitoxin to save the town's children from suffocating from the disease. The book captured the struggle of life in a remote Arctic outpost, native wisdom and even the character of sled dogs. A good read for anybody interested in adventure, history and public health. That is an eclectic audience, but this book should have broad appeal.
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Summary: Better than fiction
Review: More thrilling than fiction are the stories of real-life events, especially those as gripping as this one. One of the problems of writing about an event of which everyone knows the ending is keeping the suspense going, as well as giving sufficient background for the reader to understand the depth of the crisis. The Salisbury cousins have been painstaking in their research, and have interspersed the narrative with information about weather, natives, history, and personalities so that we are caught up in the tension, pain, and struggle of the efforts of so many to bring serum to the isolated community under the worst possible conditions. For readers concerned with heroism, as well as delineation of a time and place, this is a page-turner.
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Summary: a good tale, marred by disjointed writing
Review: The authors seem to want to put the brakes on an exciting tale, frequently digressing to tell a part of Alaska's history. While this is interesting, it also fragments the story and can be quite annoying. When the authors state "The serum had yet to face its greatest challenge - the crossing of Norton Sound", you just know you are going to have to hear the history of Norton Sound, when you'd rather stick with the dog race.
A little rearranging of the story elements would have improved this book greatly.
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Summary: The Cruelest Miles indeed
Review: The Cruelest Miles is an extraordinary story told with grace and passion. From deep in the southern portion of the US, the very idea of minus 62 degrees F is beyond imagining. The men and their dogs of the famous diptheria serum run to Nome, Alaska took on this and much, much worse. Only because people needed them. Perhaps to a generation grown callous by the invented fame of television, the mushers' "all in a day's work" attitude is utterly foreign. It is the mark of real heroes. P.S. It is especially meaningful for those that own a Siberian or adore the breed.
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Summary: It was a Dog's Day in 1925
Review: The Cruelest Miles, written by first cousins Gay and Laney Salisbury, is a thorough and well written account of the dog sled race to get life-saving serum to isolated Nome, Alaska during a diphtheria epidemic. This 1925 event was a major news story in its day and would even be referred to in the 1949 Looney Tunes cartoon "Daffy Duck Hunt" (Daffy leaps from Porky Pig's freezer claiming to have just returned from a daring adventure, "But we had to get that serum to them somehow! Mush! Mush!"). The authors offer excellent background information on every important element of the story. The history of Nome-especially the gold rush at the turn of the century-, the breeding of the Siberian Husky and the history of dog sledding-including the All Alaska Sweepstakes, Alaska politics, the daily lives of early Athabaskans and Eskimos, backgrounds on all the leading participants in the relief crusade, and the campaign to establish an arctic airline industry are all described in excellent detail. The most moving part to me was the description of what the diphtheria patients (most of whom were children) suffered (p. 36). Such information helps the reader better understand the sense of desperation Dr. Welch and the residents of Nome felt at the time. They also put the epidemic in good context by describing the Flu epidemic of 1918, still fresh in the minds of many in 1925, which took the lives of over 1,000 people around Nome.
As important and interesting the background information is, I found myself getting anxious for the authors to return to the serum dog sled run. The constant detours the authors take to cover other subjects takes away from the momentum of a very riveting story. Still, I understand that if this background information was not provided, readers would complain that the book lacked depth. Once on the serum run topic, the authors demonstrate a vast knowledge of the dangers confronted by the dog sled teams and drivers, particularly in the -40 degree conditions they faced during the run. The authors show a deep respect for those involved, especially expert musher Leonhard Seppala. The Salisburys also continue the story with what happened to the main participants (dogs included) after the event. The serum run put Nome in the news and spurred the passing of the Airmail Act of 1925 whereby airplane companies could compete against dog teams for mail contracts. The airplane would finally take over from the dog as the main source of mail transport in Alaska (the last dog mail run was in the early 1960s) (pp. 236-7). In 1925, however, it was still the dog's day and the traditional way of life in Alaska out-performed the new, floundering technology to save lives. I highly recommend The Cruelest Miles. It was written with much research and care. It includes a section of photographs as well as additional photos throughout the body of the book, source notes, bibliography, brief bios on those involved in the serum run, and a map of Alaska.
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