1925 Nome Serum Run - The Real Story
http://www.serumrun.org/History.htm - Norm Vaughan Serum Run. This page presents an in-depth review of the events leading up to, during and following the 1925 Nome Serum Run, and what happened to the various participants and bit players. This is an excellent website for researching the history of the serum run!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1925_serum_run_to_Nome
http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/iditarod.html
Leonhard Seppala
http://seppalasleddogs.com/leonhard-seppala.htm
http://home.no.net/tunheim/seppala/seppalae.htm
http://seppalasleddogs.com/isa/leonhardseppala.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonhard_Seppala
http://www.polandspringseppalas.com/3.html
Balto
http://www.fortunecity.com/boozers/elephant/114/baltomus.htm
http://www.fortunecity.com/boozers/elephant/114/realbal.htm
Togo
http://www.turtlezen.com/togosleddog.html
Nome
City of Nome, Alaska (includes a live webcam!): http://www.nomealaska.org
Tom Busch's Nome, Alaska Links (a handy and exhaustive resource!): http://www.tomsnome.com
Balto (the cartoon movies)
In 1995, Universal Studios and Steven Spielberg's Amblimation film company (now Amblin Entertainment) got together and produced a cartoon movie about Balto and the serum run (entitled, simply, Balto). While it is a very well-produced and animated cartoon, which was released theatrically, it presents a very fictionalized version of not only the serum run itself, but of Balto (who is reimagined as a wolf-dog hybrid...a stray living on the fringes of Nome in an old, abandoned, ramshackle fishing boat which is beached on the shore of the Bering Sea just outside of the town). It's a very entertaining story, and as enjoyable for adults as it would be for kids, but it is little more than that.
In 2000, and again in 2004, Universal Cartoon Studios produced two direct-to-video sequels of the Balto cartoon movie. The first, entitled Balto 2: Wolf Quest and the second, entitled Balto 3: Wings Of Change. Both stories are entirely fictional, and the production quality is not the same as in the first movie (with a direct-to-video budget, that is to be expected). The first sequel has a rather unusual storyline involving Native Alaskan mysticism, and steps out of the dogsledding foundations of the first movie. The second one returns to those foundations, and presents a story which, while fictional, is grounded in historical concepts of the time period.
Each of these three movies is still available for purchase on DVD, and are worth owning (certainly, in my opinion, the first and the third)!
The three cartoons have produced a substantial fan base (made up mostly of kids and teenagers, but there are many adults in that fan community as well). Below are a list of fan-made sites about the three cartoons. This is not an all-inclusive listing, however...and my posting them here is by no means an endorsement of the quality or activity on any of them. Some are indeed better than others. There are informational fan websites listed here, and some fan forums (which are always looking for new members to bolster their activity level and create meaningful discussion and support for the Balto movie fandom).
http://fluke.theicecave.org/main.shtml (this site has a nice section on the true story, including some footage from a documentary about the real Balto)
http://www.fortunecity.com/boozers/elephant/114/baltoindex.htm
http://www.baltoboard.it (for those of you who speak and/or read Italian, this is a great site, and has a nice section on the true story as well!)
http://baltostreasure.forumotion.com/index.htm (this site has a nice news and information page, referred to as "The Portal", which allows members to see the latest changes on the forum)
http://icyboards.ketnar.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi (this is the forum for the first site listed above)
http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/thebaltoleague