The Great of Mercy is the well-known historic story of a pack of dogs carrying vials of life saving vaccines into Nome,Alaska.
In 1925 there was an outbreak of Diphtheria in Nome, Alaska. Dr.Welch,whom usually treated patience straight away, was out of vaccines and sent an urgent message to Washington,DC. Once the message was received, there was the problem of finding the fastest way the vaccines were going to get to Alaska. There were no roads or rail and they couldn't ship it to Nome either, for the ice had frozen the shores,there was only one way to get to Nome and that was by the Iditarod trail. The Iditarod trail was skinny and was only wide enough for two people,so they came up with the idea of sledding the vials to Nome, and thus creating the great race of Mercy. Out of this historic story, Balto, the dog that achieved the sledding of the Vaccines with his musher, Gunner Kaasen, became famous and there is now a statue of Balto in Central Park, New York. This story is highly historic in Nome and there are races held in commemoration of this story.