The Cruellest Miles

The Cruellest Miles: The Heroic Story of Dogs and Men in a Race Against an Epidemic. A tale of astonishing bravery.

When gold rush fever hit, the Alaskan town of Nome sprang from being a far flung outpost to a thriving frontier town. When the winter deep freeze descends, the Bering Sea is frozen. Before aeroplanes could cope with the extreme conditions, dog sleds were the only means of delivery from the outside world. As a result, Nome was cut off for months.

Imagine the terror, therefore, in the winter of 1925, when diphtheria was diagnosed and Nome's solitary doctor had to inform the town council that his fresh supply of vaccine had not been delivered on the last boat. The only chance to save the community from being wiped out was for dog sleds to deliver the vital serum from the nearest drop off point seven hundred miles to the south.

The Cruellest Miles tells the story of the heroic dog-sled drivers and their teams who made the journey through raging blizzards at temperatures of 60 below zero. It was a race against time that held all of America spellbound.

This book also presents the reader with a great deal of fascinating information about Alaska, Arctic life, the Eskimos, the history of dog sledding and the development of one of the world's final frontiers, enriched with authentic period photographs, detailed notes and fascinating appendices.