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Central Park Balto statue visited by dog of The Great Alaskan Race

By Wesley Coburn

Photo: The MOMS Mamarazzi event with Brian Presley and Ootek (The Great Alaskan Race canine star) in celebration of the release of their new film The Great Alaskan Race
Photo: The MOMS Mamarazzi event with Brian Presley and Ootek (The Great Alaskan Race canine star) in celebration of the release of their new film The Great Alaskan Race /
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The Balto statue in New York City’s Central Park was admired by a canine visitor recently.

The Balto statue in New York City’s Central Park was admired by a distinguished canine visitor recently.

Ootek, a wolfdog who portrays the wolf in the new film The Great Alaskan Race, was part of an event organized by Denise Albert of The MOMS, along with some of the notable names behind the movie.

The Great Alaskan Race tells the story of how a team of sled dogs, led by Balto the Siberian Husky, delivered medicine a blizzard-bound city facing a diptheria outbreak in Alaska in 1925.

In reality, around 20 teams consisting of about 175 dogs were involved during the journey from Anchorage to Nome, which covers about 675 miles.

Balto’s story has been loosely retold in the 1995 film Balto, where the dog is voiced by Kevin Bacon, and he and fellow relay member Togo get a chapter of their own, straightforwardly titled “Balto and Togo’s Great Rescue Mission,” in John McShane’s 2012 book Man’s Best Friend: True Stories of the World’s Most Heroic Dogs. 

The film is produced by Timothy Patrick Cavanaugh (), and stars Brian Presley (Touchback, Port Charles) as musher Leonhard Seppala, Treat Williams (Everwood, White Collar, Chicago Fire) as and Brad Leland (Friday Night Lights, CSI: Miami, Veep) as Mayor Maynard.

Presley not only acts in the film, but also wrote and directed it; his real-life daughter Emma has a role in the film as Seppala’s daughter Sigrid.

Balto’s remains are now part of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, while Togo’s skeleton is part of  Yale University’s Peabody Museum of Natural History.

The Balto statue likely mixes the likeness and achievements of both Balto and Togo, though at the time Togo went largely unrecognized by the press covering the story. for more see McShane’s book and the dog’s Wikipedia page.

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A similar desperate relay with much-needed medicine takes place in the rather bizarre 1939 Jimmy Stewart film Made for Each Other, which begins as a typical screwball comedy before veering off into a thriller halfway through.

The MOMS is a lifestyle brand that spans multiple forms of media and focuses on telling the stories of motherhood in everyday life.

The Great Alaskan Race currently has an IMDb rating of 7.0 (out of 10) based on 24 reviews, and it will release in theaters on Friday, October 25.

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