For those of you Balto fans who don't know why they should care that I went to Cleveland, here's the story (or if you have read the last section [The Story of the REAL Balto] then you'll already know): After Balto saved the town of Alaska by running 53 miles from Bluff, Alaska to Nome, he and his team were proclaimed heroes. They were taken down to Hollywood where a film director used them to make a 30 minute movie about their courageous trip.
After that they were toured around the U.S. until their fame sort of died out and then they were sold to a dime circus. They were discovered by a Cleveland businessman who saw the poor conditions the `heroes' were living in, and that they were sick. He brought word of this to Cleveland and the town raced to raise the $2000 required to buy the dogs and bring them to Cleveland.
With the $2000 secured in just ten days, the people of Cleveland soon greeted Balto with a parade, and then visited them in their new home, the Cleveland Zoo. Balto died on March 14, 1933 and was stuffed and put on display at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, where he sits to this very day...
The Trip Begins!!
They tricked me! I can't believe they
tricked me! I thought I was going to a photography exhibit
somewhere north of Toronto. They were having a wilderness exhibit
so I wanted to go because there were wolves there. We had to wake
up at 6:00am (I was told that it would take 3 hours to get there
and my Aunt had to be back to work by 4:00pm). So I fell asleep
in the car. Next thing I know we're driving through customs.
"What? This place is in the U.S.?" I asked.
"Nationality?" asked the customs officer, rather blankly. (I know customs aren't allowed to be happy, but this guy was on something)
"Canadian," replied my Aunt.
"Where are you going?"
My mom and my Aunt looked at each other; he asked again.
"We're going to a museum in Cleveland."
We drove through the terminal and my mom said to my Aunt," I guess the cat's out of the bag. Happy birthday, son."
She reached over the seat and handed me a new schoolbag full of goodies.
"You're kidding right?" I said, still not able to fully realize where we were going.
I looked through the bag. It contained several chocolate bars, a tin of Pringles, a tourbook for Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio (Cleveland, Ohio), a road map that had a blue arrow going from my town to Cleveland, and a one-use camera with flash and 27 exposures (let me say now that I'm glad a brought along another camera).
After five hours of driving along I-90 we arrived in Cleveland, then the fun began. We tried to find the best way of getting to the Museum from where we were. We already had roads planned out, so we just followed them. With a bit of helpful navigating on my part, we arrived at the museum by 10:50am. We obviously made good time! It only took us five hours!
I was just ecstatic! I was bouncing
off the walls I was so excited! I was going to meet the REAL
Balto, who had been dead for 65 years. We made our way through
the museum, passed the first exhibit which was animals. They had
many different animals from lions, tigers, and bears (oh my!), to
snakes, birds, and wolves! :)
In the next room was the pre-historic exhibit. They had mastodon bones, a well as a Allosaurus and a Diplodocus (I think it was Di-plo-do-cus, but I never checked. I just recognized the head and tail), but they were much too big, and had been dead 65 million years.
As we entered the next room we found my
Aunt, who had gone up ahead, looking at something. It was Balto!
He wasn't in the spectacular display he was back in October-March
1995 but it was still him. In fact, if he wasn't `Balto under
glass' I probably wouldn't have been able to get so close to him.
There was a triangular shaped
display next to him that had various tidbits of information,
including a map of the sled route (I wish I had taken a picture
of it!) and a banner from the big display. But the best part,
next to Balto himself, was a television that was playing newsreel
footage of Balto and the rest of the team, including their trip
to Hollywood, parts of their movie, and finally their move to
Cleveland. It also showed the unveiling of Balto's statue in
Central Park, New York City (that is actually Balto
himself!).
As I read the information and watched the
videos, I was very happy. I had planned on going to visit Balto
in a couple of years, but I had never expected them to actualy
take me to see him! I mean, being able to see him alive (on the
video) and walking, and wagging his tail and hanging his tongue
out of his mouth like Star (from the movie) made me feel a bit
sad that he was dead and could not really see me. He probably had
no brain or internal organs (I don't know a lot about taxidermy,
but I'm sure they remove most of that stuff), and his eyes were
glass, but I bet he was up in heaven looking down and
saying," There's my friend from Ontario coming to see me in
the museum."
I finished looking at him (which had taken
about 15 minutes) and joined my Aunt and mom as they looked out
the window into the bird area. I was done for the moment, but not
for long. As we moved down the hall, I kept looking back to catch
glimpses of Balto before we went around a corner and he was gone.
At the end of the museum was the gift shop (of course), which had an amazing assortment of Balto memorabilia. They had T and sweat shirts, three kinds of pins, a Balto book, and a plaster cast statue (about 5" tall). My mom (since it was my b-day) bought me the shirt, which looked very cool. It said: BALTO, THE INCREDIBLE DOG, A RACE FOR LIFE, CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY.
I got to see Balto once more. Since
the sticker from the museum allowed us to leave and then come
back, we went through again after watching an animal display in
the front lobby. I took a picture of the wolves again, there was
a wolf inside a den gnawing on a bone that I hadn't photographed
earlier, and then I took another picture (or two [???]) of Balto.
I promised that I would return in a couple of years, which was a
promise I knew I would keep.
THE END
When we went to the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, outside the wolves' enclosure were two bronze statues: one of Balto, the other of Togo. I doubt that Togo was ever in the zoo since he ran for another musher, but if anyone deserves the credit with Balto it's Togo!
Inside the wolf gift shop, a shop with specifically wolf things (I got a nifty keychain!) was a wooden cutout of a husky dog, that was wearing Togo's sled dog harness. Balto's harness was on the table next to the cutout. I am not joking! These were the ACTUAL harnesses worn by Balto and Togo, and since they weren't boxed in or glassed in or protected by a railing, I touched them. As I ran my hands along the thick piece that went around the dog's neck, I imagined that it was on Balto and that we were going mushin'! It was kewl! I will definately go again!
