During a brutal 1925 storm, a sled dog named Balto finished out a historic 650-mile run across Alaska, bringing desperately needed medicine to the icebound town of Nome. Balto was proclaimed a hero and his name made national news. Nearly a century later, his story endures, thanks in part to a Central Park monument erected that year, as well as a 1995 animated flick, “Balto,” with Kevin Bacon giving voice to the dog.
But a fact largely ignored is that Balto actually only led the final 50-some miles of the relay. A far greater portion of the trek — about 260 miles — was led by a dog named Togo.
That heroic canine finally gets his due in a new movie, “Togo,” streaming Friday on Disney+. The film stars Willem Dafoe as Togo’s driver Leonhard Seppala — and a Seppala Siberian named Diesel who the filmmakers say is an actual descendant of the real Seppala’s dogs. The action-packed flick takes audiences on a perilous journey that makes it clear which pooch really deserved most of the credit.
“You go to the YouTube comments on the trailer, and people are all saying it’s a ‘Balto’ remake,” screenwriter Tom Flynn tells The Post. “I like that we’re setting the record straight.”
The situation in the small town of Nome, Alaska was dire in January 1925, as diphtheria had taken the lives of two young children and many more deaths were sure to come. The needed antitoxins were 674 miles away in Nenana, and it was determined the best way to retrieve them was through a dog sled relay (which would eventually inspire the Iditarod).
Enter Seppala, a seasoned musher, and his trusty dog Togo, who was already 12-years-old. At that late age, Togo led Seppala’s team through the longest and most treacherous part of the relay, including crossing the frozen Norton Sound to save time.
“It blew me away that a 12-year-old dog made that much of a run and was an unsung hero,” director Ericson Core tells The Post. “It’s quite wonderful to have the opportunity to correct history a little bit.”
In Flynn’s research, he found that Seppala was deeply upset that Togo hadn’t received proper credit.
“He was extremely put out,” says Flynn, whose script for “Togo” has already scored a Writers Guild of America nomination. “He used to refer to Balto as ‘that newspaper dog’ because he got all the press.”
Balto certainly received the attention in New York, what with the mighty statue of him placed in Central Park in 1925. It wasn’t until 2001 that Togo was given his own marble monument in the Lower East Side’s Seward Park, which is named for William H. Seward — the Secretary of State (and former New York governor and senator) who negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867.
In October of this year, the Togo statue was moved into its own circle in a new garden, but in typical Togo luck, he still doesn’t have an identifying plaque like Balto does. Seward Park Conservancy president Amy Robinson tells The Post they are raising funds for one.
“The movie has sparked tremendous interest in our Togo,” she says, calling the four-legged friend the park’s “spirit animal.”
Core — who was interested in making the film in part because of his own relationship with his pet wolf, Shalako — hopes viewers will walk away with an appreciation not just of Togo’s achievements, but of the profound bond between Seppala and his companion.
Seppala always thought Togo lived for the sled, says Core. “But in the end, it turned out [Togo] lived for him.”