When the calendar pages reveal the arrival of January 2025, there’s an anniversary that begs to be celebrated.  January of 2025 will mark the 100th anniversary of the Serum Run, sometimes referred to as The Great Race of Mercy.  Twenty drivers and about 150 sled dogs carried the diphtheria antitoxin from Nenana to Nome in five and a half days to stop the spread of the deadly disease.

What the drivers and the dogs accomplished in horrific weather conditions was nothing short of epic.  The Serum Run is the most celebrated piece of sled dog history.  It was fitting to celebrate in 1925 when the serum arrived in Nome and it’s fitting to celebrate in 2025.  Leading up to the 2025 race, Eye on the Trail will share stories and information about the Serum Run.

Iditarod’s dreamer and founding father, Joe Redington Sr., had two goals in mind when working to establish the 1,000 mile race to Nome, 1) bring sled dogs back to Alaska and 2) draw attention to the Iditarod Trail.   Sled dogs running a race on the old Iditarod supply and mail route could and did accomplish both of Joe’s goals.

Remembering and celebrating the courageous mushers and indomitable sled dogs of 100 years ago will be a big part of the Iditarod in 2025.  While commemorating the Serum Run wasn’t on Joe’s short list of goals, Iditarod has honored the great feat of the mushers and dogs who saved the children of Nome since the very first race.

The Honorary mushers for the first eleven years of Iditarod were all serum runners!  Leonhard Seppala, who accidently met Henry Ivanoff on Norton Sound north of Shaktoolik for the handoff of the serum served as the Iditarod’s Honorary Musher from 1973 to 1979.  In 1980, both Seppala and Wild Bill Shannon who ran the first leg of the relay out of Nenana, were named as Honorary Mushers.  Other relay mushers, Edgar Kalland, Billy McCarty, Charlie Evans, Edgar Nollner, Harry Pitka and Henry Ivanoff have also been recognized with Honorary Musher status by Iditarod.

Edgar Nollner who passed away in January of 1999 was the longest surviving Serum Run musher.  He was honored by Iditarod after his passing in 2000.  At the age of 21, Nollner received the serum on January 29th from  Billy McCarty at Whiskey Creek and carried it 24 miles to Galena where he handed it off to his brother, George Nollner.  While cases mounted in Nome, Nollner and the other relay drivers and dogs were experiencing severe Arctic blizzard conditions on the trail.  There was even a point when Dr. Welch of Nome sent word to halt the relay until the weather improved but his request went unheeded, the relay kept moving.

Serum Run Map from the Cruelest Miles by Gay and Laney Salisbury (W.W. Norton & Co., 2003)

For the 70th anniversary of the Serum Run in 1995, Joe Redington, Sr. was instrumental in organizing a relay race over the 1925 Serum Run route.  The relay race would commemorate the life-saving 1925 Diphtheria Serum Run to Nome bringing attention to the humanitarian efforts of men and dogs who raced against death in a severe Arctic blizzard with temperatures at twenty-year lows and winds that endangered men and dogs. 

At that time very few children under the age of two living in the villages were vaccinated.  Working with the Public Health Service, the commemorative race became a race to vaccinate and promote vaccines for children.

Organizers of the race teamed up with the state’s “Shots for Tots” initiative.  Serum was carried by each of the participating relay teams.  The goal was to immunize every child under the age of two in all of the villages along the Serum Run Route.  By the time the Commemorative Serum Run Relay racers reached Nome, 100 percent of the “tots” in the checkpoints along the trail had been vaccinated.

On the 80th anniversary of the Serum Run in 2005, Iditarod named the last survivor of the Nome epidemic, Jirdes Winther Baxter, as an Honorary Musher.  She rode in a sled as the serum did back in 1925 but only for a few miles.  She said it was a pretty rough ride.

Jirdes, the daughter of Norwegian immigrants was born on February 25th of 1924.  Her mother and brother came down with diphtheria as did eleven month old Jirdes.  Baby Jirdes was hospitalized on January 31st. 

When interviewed for the Honorary Musher Race Guide story in 2005, Jirdes said, “I don’t remember any of it, though my mother always said we were very, very sick.”  Jirdes recounted the story she’d heard from her mother saying, “I got the next to last dose of the vaccine left in Nome and Dr. Welch wanted to give my mother the last dose.  My mother insisted that my brother get it as he was so sick.  When the dog sled arrived with more serum a day later, my mother was the first to receive the vaccine.”

In 2024, Jirdes celebrated her 100th birthday with family, friends and dignitaries in Juneau.  State Representative Andi Story said, “Your experience when you were younger, your diphtheria experience, it brought to our state the awareness of the importance of public health.”

Back in 1925, Jirdes remained hospitalized for a month, including her first birthday.  But what a birthday present when all of the family survived the deadly disease!