But don't be fooled. "She morphs into psycho dog when she hits the line," said her co-owner, Diane Baskin-Wright.
About 200 sled dogs were here on a recent Saturday, barking and howling alongside vehicles with license plates reading Sib Box, Mushers, Haw Gee and Ondasly. Winnie stood out not just for her calm race-day nerves -- she is the lead dog on her team -- and the spray of gray along her back.
Unusual for a racing dog, Winnie is also a show dog, the top-ranked female Siberian in the nation. Her show name is Huskavarna's Destined to Win. She is appearing at this week's Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, competing alongside breeds that sat at pharaohs' feet and hunted with Hungarian kings.
Winnie's breed may not have royal roots but her lineage is fierce. It dates back to what some consider the finest feat in dog-and-human history, the 1925 race to deliver lifesaving diphtheria serum to an icebound Nome. The event gripped the nation and later became an inspiration for the Iditarod.
But after the headlines ceased, what happened to two of the lead dogs -- Winnie's forebear Togo and Balto, whose statue stands in Central Park -- is a tale that reflects Americans' quick creation and destruction of celebrities. It involves Hollywood, a 10-cent circus, a Cleveland zoo, a ruined friendship and a sports controversy that, almost 90 years later, still raises the hackles of sled dog drivers everywhere.
"It's still very much in the mind of mushers," said Bob Thomas, a musher of Siberians and a historian for the International Siberian Husky Club.
In January 1925, an outbreak of diphtheria had killed two children and was spreading quickly in Nome. A local doctor telegraphed Washington, urgently requesting serum to treat the diphtheria, and public health officials found a supply in Anchorage, according to Gay and Laney Salisbury's riveting book "The Cruelest Miles."
Officials determined that dog sleds were the best way to transport the serum from Nenana, a northern railroad stop, to Nome, 674 miles west.
As the dog sled teams raced west, roadhouse owners provided near-real-time updates from telephone and telegraph lines. Front-page headlines from the New York Times included "Nome Relief Dogs Speed 192 Miles," "Serum Relief Near for Stricken Nome," and "Blizzard Delays Nome Relief Dogs in the Final Dash."
"It came right down to just the spirit of men and dogs against nature," said Gay Salisbury.
A noted racer and mining-company dog driver named Leonhard Seppala was originally assigned half of the Nenana-Nome distance. Seppala's lead dog, a gray and brown Siberian husky named Togo, had covered 4,000 miles in one year alone, guided a famed polar explorer around Alaska and won major races. Togo had been Seppala's lead dog since he was 8 months old; now, at age 12, Togo would have one of his final Alaska outings with his driver.
Seppala, Togo and the team set out at high speeds, running a total of 261 miles -- they carried the serum for almost double the length any other team did. Twice, to save time, they violated warnings to avoid Norton Sound, the dangerous Bering Sea inlet, and instead went straight over the frozen sea, where ice often separated from shore, stranding travelers on floes.
In the dark, in 85-below temperatures with wind chill, Seppala could not see or hear the cracking ice and was completely dependent on Togo, the Salisburys wrote.
Meanwhile, worried that Seppala's dogs would get too tired, Alaska's governor called in additional drivers for the final portion. Just 5 1/2 days after the serum left Nenana, a driver named Gunnar Kaasen and a lead dog named Balto pulled into Nome, serum in hand.
"It was Balto who led the way," Kaasen told a reporter. "The credit is his."
Kaasen and Balto, a handsome black Siberian with white paws, became instant heroes. There were front-page articles, commendations from the president and tributes from the Senate. Newspapers, including the Times, printed a report that Balto had died from frozen lungs, then quickly rescinded it; wishful editorials proposed that Balto appear at Westminster, go on a national tour, be signed to a Hollywood contract.
But as Kaasen, Balto and that team were becoming celebrities, the other mushers from the relay straggled into Nome with a different story. Kaasen was assigned the next-to-last leg. But, in an account that some mushers still doubt, Kaasen said the lights were off in the cabin where he was to hand off the serum, so he headed for Nome himself.
Seppala was already broken when he arrived -- he had lost Togo when the dog ran off after a reindeer. Then he found that not only were Kaasen and Balto on their way to Hollywood but the newspapers had attributed Togo's lifetime feats to Balto, a dog he had not considered decent enough to put on his 20-dog team.
"The story had already heralded a winner by the time Seppala made the 100 miles home," Gay Salisbury said. "It was too complicated to showcase 20 drivers and 150 dogs. The relay as a concept was not as exciting as 'Balto crossed the finish line.' "
Sol Lesser, a Hollywood producer, shot Balto and Kaasen for a short film and Balto made joint appearances with Mary Pickford and other celebrities, Salisbury wrote. In December 1925, Balto was immortalized with a Central Park statue; news coverage by then was giving Balto credit for taking the serum all 600-plus miles.
Togo limped back into Nome about a week after the serum run ended. Later, wanting to get the acclaim due his dogs, Seppala embarked on his own tour in 1926. It culminated with a Madison Square Garden ice-rink appearance, where the explorer Roald Amundsen awarded Togo a medal of honor.
In Maine, Seppala bred Togo and other serum-run dogs he had brought east, essentially introducing the Siberian breed to the Lower 48.
"That was the foundation kennel, pretty much -- all the mushers in the Northeast at that point, most had never seen a Siberian when he showed up," Thomas, the Siberian historian, said. In 1930, the American Kennel Club admitted Siberian huskies.
Seppala sold some dogs and a few had strange fates -- Fritz, Togo's half-brother and a serum run veteran, died at Gimbels department store in Manhattan, where he was part of a holiday exhibit -- but he protected Togo, who lived his final years in Maine, dying in 1929.
Togo's body was initially displayed in a Yale exhibit about notable dogs. Later, his mount was transferred to another museum and forgotten in storage; an employee and sled dog enthusiast stumbled across it in the early 1980s. When Alaskans found out it was Togo, they demanded his repatriation and the dog's body is now on display at the Iditarod Trail Headquarters in Wasilla.
Balto's life was sadder in many ways. He and his teammates were bought and sold, first to the vaudeville circuit, then down another notch. In early 1927, just two years after the run, a Cleveland businessman stumbled upon the team in Los Angeles.
"A guy who ran a dime museum, Sam Houston, had the team chained to a sled on a stage, in this dingy tent," said Harvey Webster, director of the wildlife resource center at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.
The businessman announced he would raise $2,000 within two weeks to buy Balto and the team. He turned to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, which exhorted citizens to help save Balto.
"It's schoolkids giving their lunch money; kennel clubs that are making contributions in the name of champions," Webster said. Cleveland succeeded and Balto and his teammates became popular fixtures at the Cleveland Zoo.
Balto was aging. Neutered as a puppy because Seppala did not think he showed much promise, he never had offspring and he died in 1933. His body was transferred to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, where today he is on permanent display next to an exhibit about Inuits.
In 1997, Togo finally got his statue at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, sitting alongside a statue of Balto. A couple of years later, Togo got a standalone statue, though in a small playground in New York's Lower East Side that is hardly a tourist destination.
Seppala and Kaasen, who were good friends -- their brothers died in a fire together and are buried side by side, Salisbury said -- never spoke again, as far as Salisbury found. Each year, the Iditarod gives the prestigious Leonhard Seppala Award to the musher who treats his or her dogs with extraordinary care.
The overlooking of Togo still infuriates mushers.
"It rankles a lot," said Jonathan Nathaniel Hayes, who breeds and mushes Siberians based on Seppala's stock. He said he winces when his kids watch "Balto," an animated 1995 movie.
Seppala, according to "The Cruelest Miles," wrote a journal entry when he was 81, about 30 years after his lead dog's death:
"When I come to the end of the trail, I feel that along with my many friends, Togo will be waiting and I know that everything will be all right."
Back in Massena, Frank Wright ruffled Winnie's fur and bent down to whisper, "Gonna be good today."
As Wright and Baskin-Wright attached the dogs to the line, Winnie started howling. She wanted to race.
Wright wasn't expecting the fastest time in the six-dog category. Siberians that compete in shows, like Winnie and her crew, are too stocky to beat Siberians bred for racing and the mixed-breed hounds that are even speedier.
But at the starting line, as the timer started counting back from 10, Baskin-Wright could barely hold back Winnie, as the dog was tugging so hard. Balto may live on in the movies but Togo's descendant is still running.
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