All the neighboring towns try to send the serum to Nome, but the snowstorm prevents the planes from flying and the frozen sea does not allow the ships to leave.

What the film doesn't mention is that another 1,100,000 units of serum were gathered and shipped to Alaska, where a second relay of dog mushers and their teams picked it up and delivered it to Nome in another six days.

"Wild Bill" Shannon was the first musher in the first relay to pick up the serum in Nenana, but he did not arrive in Whiskey Creek as the film portrays.

He did pass off the life-saving serum to Dan Green in Tolovana after travelling more than 50 miles through a freezing Arctic storm and losing four of his nine sled dogs in the process.

Dan Green drove his team of sled dogs from Tolovana to Manley Hot Springs, where he passed the antitoxin off to the third musher in the relay, Johnny Folger.

The first event was that during the start of the journey, Kaasen's sled tipped over against the strong Arctic winds and dumped the serum into a deep drift of snow.

The second event occurred when Kaasen and his dog team arrived in Point Safety, where the serum was supposed to be handed over to the last musher of the relay, Ed Rohn.

But Ed Rohn, believing that Kaasen and his team had stopped at Solomon to wait out the blizzard, had fallen asleep and left his dogs unharnessed and locked up in the barn.

Kaasen made the decision to continue on his journey to Nome, possibly aware of the acclaim that would greet the person who completed the final relay.