This is Balto, the famous Siberian Husky sled dog who led his team on the final leg of the 1925 serum run to Nome, Alaska. The windchill of the whiteout blizzard when Balto set out was −70 °F. The team traveled all night, with almost no visibility, over the 600-foot Topkok Mountain, and reached Nome at 5:30 AM.

Balto is not the only dog who deserves credit–Togo took a longer and even more dangerous stretch of the run.

And this is a modern Siberian Husky:

Now, don’t get me wrong. He’s a beautiful dog. But he’s a very different dog. I think he’s trying to turn into a German Shepherd-wolf hybrid. Balto practically looks like a corgi next to him.

Siberian huskies were bred by people who depended on them for their lives, and had to endure some of nature’s very harshest weather. We moderns, by contrast, like to keep our dogs inside our warm, comfortable houses to play with our kids or guard our stuff. Have modern huskies been bred for looks rather than sled-pulling?

On the other hand, winning times for the Iditarod have dropped from 20 days to just 8 since the race began in the 1970s, so clearly there are some very fast huskies out there.