What is the Serum Run?

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Dogs and mushers during Serum Run 2006. (Photo: SerumRun.org)

February 16, 2007

The Serum Run honors a historic and heroic journey across the Alaskan wilderness that saved many lives. Beginning on Saturday, February 18, it also teaches the importance of health care and immunizations.

In 1925, a diphtheria epidemic broke out in Nome. Several residents died, and dozens more became ill. Curtis Welch was the only doctor in this remote coastal town. When the illness broke out, he did not have any medicine to fight the disease.
 
Welch quarantined the entire city of Nome. No one was allowed in or out of the city. Unless he could find a way to get the medicine, or serum, to Nome, hundreds of people would die.

A team of 20 mushers and more than 100 sled dogs set up a 674-mile relay across Alaska. In only five and half days, through one of the most brutal storms of the century, they managed to get the medicine to Nome. One of the many struggles they faced was to keep the vials of serum from freezing.

Today, mushers and snow machiners travel the historic Serum Trail trail from Nenana to Nome (768 miles) honor the feats of the original Serum Runners.  Mushers stop in the villages along the way to talk to schoolchildren about the importance of inoculations and other health care issues.

This year, the expedition will focus on awareness of brain injury.  Alaska has the highest number of Traumatic Brain Injuries in the United States.  This is due to the high use of all-terrain vehicles and snow machines in the villages.  

The Serum Run is followed by another major dogsled event that honors the 1925 rush across Alaska to save lives. The Iditarod, known as The Last Great Race, begins each year on the first Saturday in March. The 1,045-mile journey from Anchorage to Nome usually takes the winner about nine days.     

Hannah Moderow is a musher and writer for Scholastic News Online.

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