Alaska history: Baldy started out a lean and hungry mutt, with little love for people and similarly scant promise as a sled dog.Everyone was likely surprised when Baldy took well to training.
on local history by local historian David Reamer. Have a question about Anchorage history or an idea for a future article? Go to the form at the bottom of this story.James Wickersham, an Alaska district judge and delegate to Congress, once declared, “He who gives time to the study of the history of Alaska, learns that the dog, next to man, has been the most important factor in its past and present development.” As a politician, he can be excused for the slight, if understandable, hyperbole.
The accounts all agree on one point; Baldy was not a superficially impressive specimen. He was a lean and hungry mutt, with little love for people and similarly scant promise as a sled dog. Years later, Darling wrote of surprised visitors who saw Baldy and exclaimed, “This isn’t one of the racers, is it?” Moved more by Edwards’s situation than the quality of the canine, she paid him a small amount, well below the going rate for a good racing dog.
He participated in the inaugural All Alaska Sweepstakes, notably without Baldy, but did not win. The following year, he won, notably with Baldy. He would win two more times, in 1911 and 1912. With Baldy leading his team, he never finished worse than third. The premier Baldy anecdote came from another race, the Solomon Derby, and when Allan needed him the most. Allan was knocked off the sled after striking his head on a metal pole that marked the path. Accustomed as he was to Allan’s constant voice, Baldy stopped, turned the team around, and led the way back to the unconscious and bleeding musher. Baldy scratched and licked until Allan awoke and shakily resumed his spot on the sled.
Like a celebrated athlete today, Baldy eventually ran his last race and began a new, cozy life away from the hardships of the trail. Such retirements were common for the more prestigious sled dogs. Darling mentions a “dignified old huskie” named Dubby who, during Baldy’s career, enjoyed a “delightful and exclusive existence in his own apartments over the barn.” Togo, the true hero dog of the 1925 Nome serum run, spent his last years relaxing in Maine.Allan was getting older himself.
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