Sunday, July 26th, 2009
Issue: 136   Editor: MikaTheGoofball


Buzz Contest Part 1: The Results MikaTheGoofball
With the contest account being found and shot, part one of the Buzz contest has officially ended. After four days of searching, the players finally managed to locate the contest account. In the end it did not take long before the account was killed, allowing the winners to claim their prize. This article will feature the results and the explanation of the hints. In total, the Buzz had prepared seven hints that would help you find the contest account. However, first things first; the results!

The Buzz would like to congratulate both MacIsIdleToo and wizardoffire3 for being the lucky winners of part one. MacIsIdleToo won $75,000,000 for being the first player to successfully sent the correct name of the contest account, and wizardoffire3 showed our contest account to its grave as he shot it and won $100,000,000 for doing so, alongside the honor of having his crew host this contest. Finally, the Buzz would like to congratulate said crew, The Invisibles, for being the crew that will be hosting part two of our Buzz contest!

This would conclude nearly all formalities. For those of you who are interested in part two, that part is explained in a separate article. Well, that would leave me with only two additional things to do; namely explaining the hints and disclosing the name of the account. All the hints, both disclosed as undisclosed, are below alongside explanation. All feedback on the hints is appreciated, although please bear in mind that only constructive criticism can be used.

The account the Buzz set up for this contest, thanks to 5litre was called Togo. In 1925 cases of diphtheria were discovered in Nome. Being highly contagious, an epidemic seemed unavoidable. Diphtheria has a mortality rate of virtually hundred percent without antitoxin which the town did not have. In the midst of winter, ports were frozen and airplanes could not lift of, thus being unable to supply Nome with the antitoxin. Thus the governor decided to set up a relay made of sled dog teams. Every team would cover a part of the relay, carrying and transferring a cylinder containing the antitoxin. The name of our account refers to the Siberian Husky Togo who was the lead dog of the team of Norwegian Leonhard Seppala during the 1925 serum run to Nome, also referred to as the “Great Race of Mercy”. The route itself covered 674 miles (1,085 km) from the train station of Nenana to the stricken city Nome, Alaska. A total of 20 dog mushers and their teams participated in the run, each passing the cylinder containing diphtheria antitoxin on to the next reach Nome.

Why use the name Togo, and not Balto? First of all the name Balto was already taken, but more importantly it was an attempt to put you guys off the trail. Gunnar Kaasen and his dog Balto received most of the fame, however current day mushers consider Seppala and Togo to be the real heroes as they covered the longest and most dangerous part of the relay. They traveled 170 miles (274 km) from Nome to Shaktoolik only to turn around and relay the antitoxin for 91 miles (14 km) from Shaktoolik to Golovin.


Bearing all this information in mind, I came up with the following seven hints that are explained below:

b]Hint 1: The account bears a name that has been used several times in history, but the place, person, animal or thing that bore it was different every time.
According to Wikipedia: “Togo was a Siberian Husky, and named after Heihachiro Togo, the Japanese Admiral during the Russo-Japanese War.” And of course Togo is a country in Africa.

Hint 2: The account is named after one of the what is sometimes called most underestimated and undervalued athletes in the world.
Mushers often refer to their dogs as undervalued and underestimated athletes, as it is hard for people to appreciate the efforts of the dogs.

Hint 3: The entity the account is named after was the leader of a team of consisting out of those athletes.
Togo was the lead dog of Seppala's team. Lead dogs are trained to obey commands and are thus the most valued and precious assets of dogsled teams.

Hint 4: Dedicated to the indomitable spirit of the sled dogs that relayed antitoxin six hundred miles over rough ice, across treacherous waters, through Arctic blizzards from Nenana to the relief of stricken Nome in the Winter of 1925.
Endurance · Fidelity · Intelligence

This is the inscription of the monument in New York Central Park that commemorates the serum run. The statue features Balto, and not Togo, but did make clear I was looking for someone related to the serum run.

Hint 5
Number eighteen out of twenty.
Seppala was the eighteenth musher to relay the antitoxin. In total, twenty mushers participated in the serum run, thus eighteen out of twenty.

Hint 6:
Shaktoolik to Golovin
These were the two points between which Seppela and Togo relayed the antitoxin.

Hint 7
Seppala: “It was it was almost more than I could bear when the newspaper dog Balto received a statue for his 'glorious achievements'.”
The name Seppala combined with this quote should lead the crews to the Wikipedia page of Togo when searching for them using Google. This should be a certain bulls eye regardless of whatever information anyone might have found whilst researching the other hints.

That would be all for part one of our Buzz contest. Congratulations to the winners and good luck to everyone who will be participating in part two.