Togo to the Rescue: How a Heroic Husky Saved the Lives of Children in Alaska

Gr 1-2–Togo, a Siberian Husky born in Alaska in 1913, led a dog team in the historic serum-run to save the lives of children suffering from diphtheria in Nome in 1925. A brutal blizzard that year necessitated the use of 150 dogs to relay medicine from the capitol to Nome over the course of five days. Potter’s flat ink and watercolor illustrations place readers in the midst of the windswept snow plains and mountainous territory the teams of animals crossed under extraordinarily difficult conditions. The featured human in this story, musher Leonhard Seppala, a Norwegian immigrant, is centered in this historical narrative that takes place against a backdrop of whiteness. Diverse skintones do appear, but the illustrations do not indicate the fact that one-third of Nome’s population at the time was Indigenous, nor does the text acknowledge the existence of anyone other than Seppala and the governor of Alaska at the time of the event. The author’s note provides context and identifies fact and fiction without addressing the illustrator’s choice to represent the Togo’s eyes as icy blue. Togo’s eyes were recorded as having appeared brown.