Balto

The real hero of the 1925 serum run was Togo. The 12-year-old husky led his sled dog team through 260 miles of blowing Alaskan blizzard to deliver emergency diphtheria serum to Nome. Balto received most of the fame, because he led the final 55 miles. Togo now has his own film, Togo (2019) and starring Willem Dafoe.

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.

Gunnar Kaasen staggered into Nome at 5:30 A.M. on February 2, 1925. His dogs were cold and exhausted, their feet torn and bloody. But the serum was delivered. Kaasen handed it to the only physician in Nome, Dr. Curtis Welch of the Public Health Service, and then he began to pull the ice splinters out of his dogs' feet.

There are many differences between the movie and real life. The sled run to Nome was actually a relay, and Balto was the leader of the last team to carry the medicine to Nome. The team led by Togo covered the longest, most hazardous distance. Balto was a purebred Siberian Husky, not a wolf hybrid. Balto was born in a kennel owned by the famous musher Leonhard Seppala, where he grew up until he was deemed fit for pulling a sled. Seppala also owned Togo, whom he personally used during the relay; Balto was used by one of his workers, Gunnar Kaasen. Balto was neutered when he was a few months old, meaning the puppies in the sequels never existed.

Jenna's character design was based on Audrey Hepburn.