Balto Art

Alfred Wierusz-Kowalski (1849–1915)

Concept art for the main characters from Cartoon Saloon's Wolfwalkers

Concept art for Amblimation's Balto

Despite being a Balto fan for most of my life, I’ve only just now learned there is a deleted scene where Steele (presumably) dies! The scene doesn’t seem to have made it past the storyboard stage so some inferences have to be made while looking at the images. It seems to be set after Balto has already returned to Nome with the medicine when he is confronted by Steele. Steele seems to refuse to give up what he calls the golden collar, while the other dogs think Balto is the one that deserves it. The golden collar is mentioned in the beginning of the movie, btw. It appears to be a prize given to the lead sled dog that wins the annual races. Anyway, it seems that during a struggle Steele somehow gets this golden collar hooked onto a lever that opens a hatch, he chokes for a few frames, then seems to slip into the pit below. The end of the scene shows Balto staring, horrified, at the collar hanging from the lever, with Steele gone from sight. 

The best theory I can come up with what happens during this shot is the hatch leads down to a coal storage area. It seems that the lever being pulled also triggers a coal hopper to release it’s contents, explaining the black dots drawn on some of the last frames. Although the coal hopper (or whatever it is) stays out of sight, in some of the frames you can see Steele staring in terror above him which helps support the theory. Judging by Balto’s and the others horrified faces, I assume that they just witnessed Steele’s death, either by being crushed by a load of coal or choked to death by the collar. Pretty dark for a children’s film, so I understand why they wanted to cut the scene. Especially if they were going to make it anything similar to the snare scene from Watership Down (you know exactly what I’m talking about if you’ve ever seen that movie). I am kinda upset they left the scene out since it would have been a more fitting, albeit a bit brutal, ending for Steele. There’s some poetic justice in that the collar he didn’t want to let go of presumably sends him to his demise.