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Several major projects have started in a row, which has caused Li Yaoyang's funds to be a little stretched, and he needs to find a new profit growth point for himself.

Gold panning is indeed a good channel, but it is not enough, unless the vein they discovered is really an extremely rich gold mine.

In order to get the profits from the gold mine, he allocated 150,000 dollars to Xiaoqi for the purchase of gold panning equipment, and at the same time arranged for 50 brothers to go north with him.

But not all of these 50 brothers stayed in Yukon, because at the same time, he got in touch with Kang Dongliang, and the two sides jointly formed a gold mining team to go to the bitter cold land of Alaska.

Alaska, far from the mainland of the Ugly State, is the largest state in the Ugly Country, twice the size of Texas, the second-largest state.

If it were a country, it would be among the top 20 in the world in terms of land area.

A third of this vast area is located north of the Arctic Circle, and most of the rest is also in the subarctic zone, with long, cold winters and heavy snowfall.

In such a remote and inhospitable place, the transportation conditions were poor for a long time.

Even in the later generations of advanced technology, there was only a lonely Dalton Highway in northern Alaska, which ran from Fairbanks in its hinterland to the oil fields along the Arctic Ocean coast, and it was accompanied by only one oil pipeline.

Before the construction of roads in Alaska, dog sled dogs were the most common and efficient means of transportation in Alaska, and the Alaskan sled dogs that pulled the sled were the best companions of the locals.

Later, Alaska held the annual Editharad Dog Sled Race.

The race is the main line of the Editharad Trail between the southern city of Anchorage and the northwestern town of Nome, which is about 1,600 kilometers long and crosses most of Alaska.

In the area between Caltaggo and Ophile, the trail is divided into two branches, north and south, with the southern route used in even-numbered years and the northern route in odd-numbered years.

Each competitor is accompanied by 16 sled dogs who trek for eight to fifteen days in the snow and ice at the beginning of March, sometimes experiencing extremely low temperatures below -50 degrees Celsius.

Each runner who completes the course is rewarded, with the first place winner receiving around $60,000 in return, and the first-place sled dog receiving a gold collar.

Alaskans take this event very seriously, and with their careful management, this event has become an annual carnival in Alaska and one of the most famous long-distance dog sled races in the country and the world.

But originally, the event was held to commemorate a miracle performed by Alaskan sled drivers and sled dogs on the Eddie Tarad Trail during a winter storm of 1925.

Originally a hunting and touring route for Alaska's Native people, including the Inuit and others, the Editharad Trail is the only trail that helps Native Americans find their way in the snowy fields.

In Alaska's uncivilized era, the road was known as Alaska's first road because it brought food to the Native people and connected villages of different tribes.

Its main line runs from Seward in the southernmost part of Alaska to Nome in the northwest, and there are many other branches that lead to the icy and snowy waters of Alaska's hinterland.

The name Editharad is derived from the local indigenous language, meaning "faraway place".

In the 18th and early 19th centuries, the Russians entered Alaska through the Russian-American Company, but they only exploited the relatively warm southern coast, and they knew almost nothing about the vast Alaskan hinterland.

In 1867, the Ugly Nation bought Alaska, but there was also a lack of interest in this cold and barren land, and only a small number of explorers explored the interior of Alaska.

But near the end of the 19th century, explorers discovered gold in Northwest Alaska.

No matter where you are in the world, the attraction of gold is immense.

In 1898, explorers made the news public, and within a year, gold prospectors were pouring into Alaska.

Led by the local aborigines, the gold prospectors braved the cold to the northwest coast of the gold mines, where the gold mines were located, and built a small stronghold near the Arctic Circle, named Nome.

By the following year, the population of Nome had exceeded 10,000, and they had come to Nome on a sleigh via the Editharad Trail, which was the first time the Editharad Trail was known to the world.

Originally, the Editharad Trail in the snowfields was partial, the route was not fixed and prone to danger along the way.

In 1908, the government of the Alaska Territory decided to send someone to survey and maintain the trail, not only to facilitate the travel to the Northwest, but also to exploit the interior of Alaska.

However, the government's efforts have not paid much off:

Noem's undiscovered gold reserves were soon exhausted, and the disappointed prospectors left, leaving the Editharad Trail once again.

But in 1910, an even bigger gold rush was set off in Alaska, and more gold was rediscovered near Nome, as well as gold and other minerals in places like Ruby and Orphil in Alaska's heartland.

Gold prospectors from all over the country, as well as miners from various mining companies, flocked to the country, establishing strongholds and small towns in the interior of Alaska.

The government-cleared Editalad Trail has finally come in handy, becoming the only line of contact between these mining towns and the outside world, as well as the only supply line for supplies.

The only means of transportation on this trail is dog sledding.

Originally responsible for driving sleds for gold prospectors and miners, Alaska Native Americans later learned how to drive dog sleds and train Alaskan sled dogs.

The Alaskan Malamute (also known as the Malamut) is one of the most common breeds of sled dogs, and they are very similar in appearance to the Siberian Husky (commonly known as the Husky), but they are larger and more physically strong, but they are slightly slower.

Although they are friendly to humans, they are more aggressive than other sled dogs, such as Huskies, Greenlands, and Samoyeds.

As a result, they were domesticated by the indigenous peoples of Alaska and northern Canada at an early age, and in addition to pulling sleds, they could also be used as hunting dogs, and even hunting brown bears and seals.

By the beginning of the 20th century, white people had learned Alaskan Malamute training methods from Native people, and these sled dogs were later introduced around the world and played a large role in polar expeditions and ice rescues.

However, the Alaskan Malamute's greatest legacy in history occurred during a winter storm in their native Alaska in 1925.

In 1925, a winter storm in Alaska was stronger than usual, and the storm froze the shipping lanes to Nome ahead of schedule, forcing a cargo ship bound for Nome to turn back.

At that time, the gold near Nome had been exhausted again, and most of the gold prospectors had long since left, with only about a few hundred families and 2,000 people remaining there.

However, although the sparrows are small and well-equipped, the various facilities in Nome City are quite complete, and the materials for the winter are also abundant.

When most of the town's inhabitants were disappointed to learn that the ship had returned, they did not panic. Except for one person.

This man's name was Cortis Wilcher, and he was the only doctor in the town.

Together with several of his nurses, he manages a small hospital in Nome.

The hospital is government-funded and the only medical facility in Nome and several nearby towns.

In late January, an Inuit ran to the hospital for help, saying that his two children were seriously ill and dying.

Vilcher arrived at the Inuit home and found the two children suffering from severe tonsillitis.

He tried his best to heal, but he couldn't save those two lives.

He questioned the children's mother and learned that the children had only three days from the onset of illness to their death.

At this time, Wilcher's heart was not filled with sadness or self-blame, but with deep unease:

Tonsillitis alone shouldn't have killed people so easily, and the two children most likely had diphtheria, a serious bacterial infection.

Due to the hospital's poor equipment, Wilcher was unable to perform laboratory tests to confirm his suspicions.

He told several nurses about his idea, but they all thought it was unlikely, as the disease had never been seen in Alaska.

Within days, however, a white man's child became seriously ill.

This time, Dr. Wilcher saw the typical gray-white patches of diphtheria on the child's throat, confirming his thoughts.

Vilcher felt that something was wrong, that diphtheria was a deadly infectious disease that, if not controlled, would not only kill the patient, but also infect those close to them.

Treatment of diphtheria requires the use of special antitoxins and serums.

And before the onset of winter, the hospital ran out of antitoxins and serums.

At that time, he sent a telegram to the Alaska Territory government in Juneau, asking them to send some antitoxin and serum to Nome for backup, but the early winter storm blocked the route, and the supplies on the returning freighter included the antitoxin and serum ordered by Vilccher.

Wilcher quickly approached the mayor of Nome to discuss what to do.

The mayor was shocked to hear Wilcher's report, because the lesson of blood was still vivid: just six years ago, a common flu turned a Native village in northern Alaska into a dead village because of a lack of medicine during the winter.

The flu is so terrible, let alone diphtheria.

According to Vercher's calculations, if not enough antitoxin and serum could be found within two weeks, Nome could repeat the same mistake.

And this time it may be even more devastating:

Diphtheria has never been seen in this area, and the indigenous people around Nome have no immunity to it, and if the epidemic gets out of control, the situation will be dire.

Together with Vilcher, the mayor sent distress telegrams to nearby towns, but there were not enough medicines in nearby towns.

Eventually, the telegram was passed to a hospital affiliated with the Alaska Railroad.

The hospital has more than enough antitoxins and serums, but its location is in Anchorage on the south coast, 1,600 kilometers from Nome.

How to get these life-saving medicines to Nome in two weeks under a winter storm became a problem.

After a heated discussion, it was thought that the medicine could be transported by rail to the nearest location to Nome, and then the most skilled sleders could be sent to Nome by relay to deliver the medicine to Nome via the branch line of the Editharad Trail.

At that time, the Alaska Railroad Company had already built the railroad from Anchorage to Fairbanks, a city in the heart of Alaska.

However, the railway runs basically north-south, while Nome runs in a north-westerly direction.

The nearest Ninana to Nome along the railway line is also 1085 km from Nome.

Luckily, there's one of the northernmost spurs of the Editharad Trail.

But even then, it takes at least 25 days for a dog sled to complete the journey at a normal speed.

While everyone was still hesitating and discussing whether it was reliable to do so, they received a distress signal from Noam:

Diphtheria is starting to break out, and 50 people are already showing symptoms, and the medicine has to be delivered within 10 days, or Nome and the whole of Northwest Alaska will be gone.

There was no time to discuss it any more, and the people of Anchorage decided to go with the plan.

Tens of thousands of bags of medicine were loaded onto the train and brought to Ninana, where the best local dog puller, Shannon (nicknamed "Wild Bill"), was already in place with his dog.

Thus began one of the greatest relay relays in the history of Alaska and even the ugly country.

Shannon put the fur-wrapped medicine on the sleigh and drove the 16 sled dogs to the west, into the storm and the polar night.

Prior to this, both Anchorage and Nome had sent telegrams to villages and strongholds along the route, letting the locals know about Nome's emergency.

So people along the way opened their doors to Shannon, providing him and his dog with hot water, food and blankets.

Although Shannon knows that every second of speed may save a life, he also knows exactly where his limits and those of the sled dogs are.

If you want to be fast, you can't reach it, and at a low temperature of more than 50 degrees below zero, Shang Nong has mastered the best speed with experience.

When the sled dog's physical strength was close to exhaustion, Shannon jumped off the sled and ran in the snow with the sled dog, which not only motivated the sled dog, but also maintained his own body temperature.

When he arrived in Tolovana, the next sledder was already waiting there, and Shannon handed him the medicine and passed on the experience to him.

Then the next sled driver took over from Shannon and galloped west.

In this way, from Ninana to Nome, the skilled sled drivers began a relay around the clock.

In Shakturik, the 17th sleighman, Zapala, took over the medicine.

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