Loved that movie when I was a kid.

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"Lool kids! It's Balto!"

What about the Alaskan bull worm?

Yeah I was surprised where the article said Balto is not that well known.

Lazy editing placed Balto as the hero when Togo was the one that did over 5 times the distance over dangerous terrain.

I saw that movie when it came out but the only thing I can remember is that bit where the carpenter is making all those child sized coffins.

I'm sure there was more than just Togo

Why does he have a kids face on his butt?

Damn, I think I blocked that out until just now.

I remember a dog sled team that was transporting penicillin? Or was it a polio vaccine? Anyway that dog is a hero.

No it was just him. The rest of the dogs rode on the sled.

Thank you!! I thought i was just imagining it (or that thing where your brain creates faces out of nothing) ....i would like to know also

It wasn't a vaccine as the kids were already sick but I can't remember from what.

Reflection of a kid standing near the case when the picture was taken

It's one of those things that stuck with me. That and all the little headstones in old cemeteries. It's kinda weird thinking just how normal for kids to die. I knew very few people who've lost a child but back then and in some parts of the word, it's not uncommon to loose up to half them.

Really makes me appreciate living when and where I do.

Yeah, Togo definitely deserves more recognition.

Diphtheria

I think that was it, sounds familiar.

May be a dumb question but, why is Balto in Ohio? Did he retire there?

Nope. It's gotta be a ghost.

What the hell is he doing in buttfuck Ohio?

Yes you are very correct. Togo, due to severe weather conditions had to run/lead his team of dogs Practically blind over open ice with little guidance! Togo and ream were incredible that day!

Chicago gets "The Ghost and the Darkness," a pair of lions that killed dozens of people.

Cleveland gets..."Balto," a sled dog.

Sounds about right.

I know, but Togo was the lead.

Togo and his team of brave doggos.

Of course! The ghost of buttfacekid!

Balto’s preservation looks way better than the lions. They guy who killed them used them as floor rugs for like 20 years before they got sent to the museum.

You can read the full story at the Cleveland Natural History page (https://www.cmnh.org/balto) but tl:dr yes, the ended up living out their remaining lives at the Cleveland Zoo (after being saved from shady Californians).

https://www.cmnh.org/balto

What did Balto do to deserve eternity in Cleveland?

Assy McGee’s cousin

Idk kinda weird to me. Like a taxidermy of an athlete.

He had to get saved from shitty Californian “owners”

It's a reflection of a kid standing near the glass

His statue is in Central Park in NYC (just like in the movie).

For those wondering "Why Cleveland?":

After the serum run, Gunnar Kaasen, the musher, took Balto on a nationwide tour. Afterward, the real Balto and his team were sold to a movie producer named Sol Lesser, who made a movie called Balto's Race to Nome (1925), valorizing Balto. After that, the team was sold again and put on exhibit as a curiosity. The dogs were abused, neglected, and forgotten, until a Cleveland businessman named George Kimbal, with the help of Cleveland school children, bought the six remaining dogs for the then-astounding sum of $2,000, which they raised in two weeks. The dogs were brought to the Cleveland Zoo, and lived out their lives in peace. When Balto died in 1933, he was stuffed, and put on display in the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.- source: IMDB.com (of all places)

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Justice for Togo!

I watched the Togo movie and could have died the entire time. That dog was a real hero.

If it wasn't for the courage of Norman Osborne as well the entire town would've died.

Was he actually part wolf or was that made up for the movie?

I’ve seen this in person, I lived within a half mile of it at one point. NOBODY TOLD ME IT WAS THE ACTUAL DOG!!! I thought it was just a generic taxidermy stand-in!

I love it when somebody just straight up asks about what we’re all thinking and keeping to ourselves. We need more of you.

Balto captured a sole on his hind leg

I'm Alaskan, many people from my birth State talk about bringing Balto home to Anchorage.

Not that well known?! He's got a Bronze statue in Central Park in NYC.

Completely made up. He was an Alaskan/Siberian Husky. Back then dogs had not been distilled into the easily identified "breeds" as we know them today.

Like they were, but they weren't. Huskies existed, but they weren't bred into such narrow and tight genetic traits, patterns and markings as they are today.

Notice his coat is actually very shaggy but you won't find many Huskies that look long/shaggy like that, most look more sleek or "poofy" with their winter coats.

The whole "half wolf" thing was a plot device for a cartoon. There was no dog named "Steele" or anything of that nature.

Kinda morbid.... lil bit

Cool I guess.. Kinda twisted keeping a body around though.

90's required lit stuffed.

The real question IMO, is where is the love for Togo? The true savior of the 1925 serum run.

Edit: didn’t know how hashtags work on Reddit apparently

What movie?

Can confirm.

I remember reading this when I was at the museum 2 months ago! Poor dogs. :(

SGT Elias didn't lay down his life in Vietnam to be called Norman Osborne.

I remember watching Balto animation back in elementary school.

Balto 1995

Thank you

I knew someone who worked there. They refused to assist me in a Balto heist…

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I watched the Willem Dafoe movie on Disney Plus, I struggled to get through the movie without getting very emotional. I’ve got 2 Huskies so the scenes hit close to home, incredible story

Idk, it sounds like it's to Togo's benefit that he wasn't tapped for national fame

Diphtheria antitoxins.

I'm Ohioan. Makes more sense for him to be with you than down here.

"#repatriateBalto"

IIRC This occurs right after the Spiderman: No Way Home after Peter cures Osborne who became regretful of the acts and misdeeds participated in. From there he goes back to his original timeline and becomes a dog sled trainer and you all know the rest.

According to IMDB: In 1998, the Alaska Legislature passed HJR 62- 'Bring Back Balto' resolution. The Cleveland Museum of Natural History declined to return Balto. However, in October 1998, Balto left for a five-month stay at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art, which drew record crowds.

*williem dafoe

Critical thinking skills 0

Thank you. My first thought was, indeed, “Why Cleveland?” Nice to know it’s where Balto and the surviving team got the hero treatment they deserved.

One of my daughters adored the story and then the movies. Balto was real and selfless--qualities we don't teach our children anymore. Very sad. Her sensitivity to others and their suffering influenced her to do a lot of teen churchwork, and she became a medical professional after spending her summers traveling to rural areas as a medical volunteer to underserved areas. I am extremely proud of her, and never had a problem with drugs or sex.

Parents must bring back character and morality into their lives and their children's lives.

Let's just stick to rampart

I tell him he's a good boy at least once a year when visiting with my nieces and nephews.

The face around the hind leg scared the fuck out of me.

It's in a glass case. Just a reflection.

There's an old cemetary near town here, where the original settlement was. The dates that are still discernible on the gravestones are between 1880-1899 and there's one in particular that has I think three or four children from the same family engraved on it. Back then it was probably pneumonia or TB that did them in as I don't imagine the winters around here in those days were very forgiving.

The museum worth a visit?

I’m not Alaskan, but I listen to A LOT of Alaskan news (they are a lot like florida? Idk it gets wild up there). Apparently Alaskans get upset that Alaska is forgotten about in a lot of tours, but then have a really bad habit of not showing up when big acts do come to Alaska (I think Kiss or Metallica is still p pissed about some 80s show that caught the stage on fire?)

BUT the idea that Alaskans not only made legislation to bring Balto home but also drew record crowds to see him at the museum 🥹 makes my eyes moist that they appreciate this Alaskan native puppy so much.

Oh I thought Steele was so pretty. The only people I knew with a husky at the time was my aunt's family and they would be annoyed when I'd call their husky Steele. "He's a GOOD boy!"

It's important to note that Balto was chosen because the dog that actually lead the majority of the run had run away for a few months immediately after the race, as it often did, and the musher couldn't get the press to wait and was forced to bring Balto with him.

Togo often ran away for a few months and wasn't around for the press tour, Balto was chosen because Togo wasn't back yet and the press couldn't wait.

That's pretty cool! I like old cemeteries.

It is an absolutely charming relic of a silver age of museums. It's not shiny, glitzy, and multimedia-filled. It's a bit dusty, sometimes campy, and filled with little things that you didn't know you'd be happy you got to see.

Spending a day wandering in and out of museums around University Circle is undoubtedly time well spent.

I once officiated a wedding in this venue next to the statue of Balto. The couple wanted it there and wanted Balto to be present for it. Sweet wedding venue

The Cleveland Art Museum is - it's one of the best in the world!

Funny thing is... Balto just ran the last 55 miles. Togo was the lead dog that pulled it 261 miles before he stopped due to exhaustion.

I thought this dog was preserved in Alaska in the lodge at the starting point for the Iditarod dog sled race?

There is a taxidermy there (when I visited about 15 years ago) which they claim is this very dog...

Edit: Seraph062 helped me remember that this was actually Togo, who was the dog that delivered emergency vaccines during a blizzard in Alaska.

No giant wolf paws? What the crap, Amblin?! Next you'll be telling me he didn't have a goose friend who spoke with an accent.

I second this. It is a gem and it is free. When I lived in Cleveland I would go as often as I could. They have a little bit of everything. Beautiful paintings by notable artists, sculpture (they have a thinker) illuminated texts, stained glass, Tiffany silver work, a beautiful garden fountain, there's an arms and armory section that is really cool and you don't see in a lot of art museums. If any of you readers go, find the Cupid and Psyche David painting. It's massive and probably my favorite in the museum.

If the natural history museum is anything like the art museum then it'll be a great experience!

And just for people who don’t really know: diphtheria is AWFUL.

It’s nickname is “the strangling angel” because you grow a leathery plaque in your throat that just obstructs your airway and your lymph nodes swell.

I think people thought it was like a flu, but it’s a HORRIBLE illness that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

yeah if i had to pick a museum to really spend the day in i would pass on the nh one. i remember seeing balto and it was kinda depressing how he was just stuffed and hanging out. i guess that's how that stuff works though.

It's definitely how stuffing works.

Want to really traumatize your kids? Have them fall in love with the movie and then take them to see the real-life dead pupper!

It's in Ohio, so go at your own risk.

The movie ended up being suppressed due to consumers reporting that it was creating too many furries

I had a husky for 12 years who was copper red. He's been gone since May. Still miss him terribly.

Well yeah, this dog and Togo (along with their teams and human leaders) were responsible for saving an entire community in Nome, and such stories like that don't really happen anymore but it was an amazing act of heroism.

As a sporting event Alaska still holds the Iditarod trail race that mirrors the path these teams took from Anchorage with the finish line in Nome.

Is that Dewey from Malcolm in the Middle on Baltos rear?

Are you thinking of Togo, who is in the Iditarod museum in Wasilla, Alaska?

What a lousy taxidermy job...they didn't capture the likeness from the movie at all!

My great-aunt died from diphtheria a few years after this. She was only 9, and her younger siblings all survived, but my great-grandparents were devastated.

Togo did the major part of the run. Disney has the movie about it. All of the huskies here in the states are decended from him.

Togo!

I've seen this!

Last time I went to the cemetery where my grandfather and his family are buried, I noticed a grave for a 3-year-old child from the 1890s. It was a sculpture of a small sapling tree cut down and the image really stuck with me.

Cleveland Natural History Museum, Museum of Art, and Botanical Gardens are all on a circle drive together. In my opinion the Art Museum is the best experience of the three.

I remember watching it in a movie theater. I mostly remember how cold all the scenes looked, probably because it was the middle of winter outside.

I did some work in such an area and holy crap do things get weird once it drops below -40°C.

Definitely. There's also a lot of Easter eggs to look out for hidden in the exhibits, most notably the hamburgers hidden throughout the displays.

And Fox! Who didn’t have a “cool” name so didn’t get love from the press….

Jane you seen “8 Below”? I have Malamutes and that movie makes me cry.

Willem dafriend

Balto gets all the glory, but Togo was the real hero.

Hey! This dog's a PHONY! A big, fat PHONY!

Yes, that's it! Thank you for helping me remember...

Thats his Cutie Mark

It’s the kid from Nome he couldn’t save. Balto spent the rest of his life haunted by that kid, wishing he could have been just a little bit faster.

Man a whole lot of you need to go talk to some mushers, especially Siberian Husky mushers.

Togo was kept by Leonard when he moved back east, and ended up sireing a TON of sled dogs. Togo’s progeny are incredibly plentiful, and sought after. When I was young (through high school) we had a full kennel of Siberians. We had a direct descendant of Togo (who my brother also named…. Togo). He was one of our lead dogs for most of his life, and was a really, really good dog.

The only sled dog we ever had that I thought more of was a Siberian my mother rescued because he was in a bad home and they were about to put him down. She literally left work early when she heard that, and my Dad learned that we had a new dog when he got home. :-D. That dog was also the only Siberian we ever had who NEVER tried to escape. He could have easily jumped a fence or dug his way out, but he never did. He was also a fantastic elder for our Togo and countless other pups. A trait which he apparently taught to our Togo.

TL;DR— Togo>Balto

Thank God someone else said it.

I didn't even know he was ill.

All with a little help from Dr. Strange, by placing Norman back a few years in time

#BringBaltohometoanchorage

And then pop over to Little Italy or...the hidden gem Jolly Scholar....for a good bite

I thought the BG was a waste of money tbh. I went to school over there and glad I only visited once. Otherwise the other museums and the surrounding area are charming to say the least. I wish more people could experience it

Taxidermy has always been creepy and unsettling to me for good reason, I once knew this super hot girl I was interested in and then found out she does taxidermy and I was like nah I can’t do it lmao

Disney actually made a halfway decent movie about Togo starring Willem Defoe, my kids loved it.

Edit: Also wanted to add that Togo was 12 when he lead the dogs, and died at 16. Legend.

Or head up to Coventry and check out Tommy’s

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Or head up to Coventry and check out Tommy’s

Exactly why i came here lol thank you

Another old film museum that's charming and worth a visit is the Clackamas County Jailhouse in Astoria, Oregon. The same Jailhouse featured in The Goonies.

Like a 58/60 year old man leading.

I was just there for the first time last Friday! Absolutely lives up to the hype.

I'm also very jealous of their houseplants

Corbo’s donuts are hands down the best on Earth.

Meanwhile I just had descendants of one of the two dogs that played Gus in Iron Will.

They can’t do this to him… DO THEY KNOW HOW MUCH HE’S SACRIFICED?!

I have two Siberian huskies and I was researching their family tree earlier this year and was surprised to find that they were descended from Togo! Or maybe I shouldn't have been that surprised as, like you said, his progeny are plentiful. But these aren't sled dogs, they're just pets - their mum wasn't Kennel Club registered but their dad was, so I looked up his kennel name and went from there.

You’re almost certainly wrong about one thing—they almost certainly would LOVE to pull a sled. In fact, in the ~20 years that we ran sibes I can only think of one that didn’t like pulling or the sled.

Fun fact: Most of the time all the training that they needed to join the team was to put them in the dog bag and let the team run. Usually 10 minutes later (not exaggerating) they were screaming to be let out, and they joined the team without issue. It’s really amazing how quickly that drive unlocked in them.

We had a few dogs who would join our team every winter that were definitely pets first, but flipping loved putting on a harness and joining the team.

I mean they weren't bred or trained as sled dogs, but of course they love(d) running and pulling stuff, and I have had them pull me along on a sled before - but mostly what they've done is canicross (long distance running with me and my partner, training for half- and full marathons, attached to us with specialised harnesses and bungie cords) and bikejoring (me cycling, dogs attached to bike with special arm and harness).

Although with them turning 14 in a few weeks, and one now being blind, they're not really into that sort of thing anymore - long, sniffy walks with a bit of bouncing around are fine, otherwise it's snoozing on their favourite cushions.

Sounds like they have led a pretty amazing life with you!

One of the cutest things we got to watch our elderly dogs do was help raise the pups. They’d show them how to do all the sled dog things for like 2 miles and then it was time for a nap for everyone.

If there were a kennel near me (or if I could talk my wife into caring for a whole kennel—it’s a whole lifestyle though) I’d be busy just sledding with the pups and the retirees.

Nice. Man you guys are making me actually miss Cleveland some lol.

Over 150 dogs have died during the Iditarod and that doesn’t even include those who have died during the off-season. One dog’s heroism turned into a tradition of running dogs to their death in all weather extremes. 💔

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This dog is a hero 🫡

That's marketing for you.

The dogs are bred and LIVE for that kind of running, Clown.

Siberian Huskies love it as do Malamutes. It is in their nature to haul and run in teams. They are some of the oldest dog breeds on Earth with millenia of tradition in running. Virtue signal ignorantly to people who don't know better, or shut up and learn something in this TIL.

I don't think so. If it never happened we wouldn't be able to appreciate this dog and the heroics for as long as we had. Seeing him "in the flesh" so to speak makes an impression.

Oh, so you’re a musher or work with a musher, so you know this firsthand? Or do you just live Anchorage/Willow, etc. yourself? 🤔 Having been to the Iditarod and being on these sled dog properties has proved the theory that they live this great life on the end of a chain when not running — wrong.

I don’t know, man. Mushers house sick, distressed dogs with no socialization, enrichment and bullshit shelter through frigid temps and weather.

Running to your death, choking on your own vomit, breaking a limb, or suffering from hypothermia in order to make big bucks for the human seems pretty gross to me.

I'm a trucker from Kodiak and knew mushers, owned a husky myself. They were born and bred to run, it's so engrained into the fabric of their DNA as to be instinctual.

Running, pulling, and working brings these dogs great enjoyment in life.

Though I understand your position here, but do you really think that running 1,000 miles in all weather extremes/terrain is instinctual for them? 1,000 miles? Sub zero temps? Cliffs, rivers, ice, etc? Not to take lifesaving medicine to children, but to warn humans a large profit?

I understand this is a tradition of the Inuit people, but as time goes on, we evolve. Last year at the Iditarod, it was a bunch of white people hootin’ and hollerin’. It’s time to evolve past using animals like this.

>Though I understand your position here, but do you really think that running 1,000 miles in all weather extremes/terrain is instinctual for them? 1,000 miles? Sub zero temps? Cliffs, rivers, ice, etc?

Millenia of breeding and influence on the genetic traits that make up their personalities, drives, and physical forms I say Yes.

>I understand this is a tradition of the Inuit people, but as time goes on, we evolve.

Lmao, so says You and every person who justified the boarding schools imposed upon the Native children.

>Last year at the Iditarod, it was a bunch of white people

So what if it was? You're unironically being incredibly racist.

>It’s time to evolve past using animals like this.

It would have been a more convincing argument if you stuck to the animal cruelty train of thought, but you mixed in woke race bullshit and made an even uglier statement.

"I hope I shall never be the man to take away credit from any dog or driver who participated in that run. We all did our best. But when the country was roused to enthusiasm over the serum run driver, I resented the statue to Balto, for if any dog deserved special mention it was Togo. [...] At the time I left [for the run] I never dreamed that anyone could consider these dogs [the second string] fit to drive even in a short relay. [...] As to the leader, it was up to the driver who happened to be selected to choose any dog he liked, and he chose Balto"

-Leonhard Seppala