How come Boris is a Russian goose with lifelong experience in English-speaking Alaska? If one would rule out a one-way migration from the Russian Far East, it's not necessary to assume Boris was born from the other side of the Bering Strait. The settlement which eventually became Nome and Alaska as a whole were under control of the Russian Empire until they were sold to the US in 1867. Boris may have been either raised by Russian-speaking geese or (less probably) he is just an unfathomably old goose with memories of pre-selling Alaska (with some trips back home).
Not to mention that plenty of humans in Alaska still spoke Russian, or Russian-Native creoles, as their first language at the time the movie was set. It's not like the handover of the region to the U.S. instantly taught everybody English, after all.
Boris once compares Balto, Muk, and Luk's issues to Dostoevsky novels.
Dixie telling Steele that he's "disposable" rather than "despicable" is just a joke, but this happens right before everyone turns on Steele for his actions. What does one do with disposable things? One throws them away.
The "I have a message for your mother" punchline seems like an odd way to insult Balto, since Huskies are much more prone to howling than other domestic dog breeds to begin with.
The reason Balto doesn't speak for the last twenty-five minutes of the film is because his silence signifies that he's fully embraced his wolf heritage (as this all takes place after the scene with the white wolf). None of the wolves in the movie speak: they only howl. The passing wolf pack in the beginning howls at Balto, and the white wolf doesn't say a word to him. And what does Balto do when he's about to reach the town with the medicine? He howls. (This gets somewhat muddied by the second movie, which has talking wolves, but that was made by an entirely different team from the first movie's.)
What becomes of Steele after the first film, since he is never seen or even mentioned in the sequels? Did he end up starving to death?
Might have gotten sold to a musher in another town after the incident if none of the other sled dogs are willing to work with him. Might just be sulking somewhere. Or both.
It's quite possible due to his ego that after they shunned him for his utterly disgraceful behaviour in the first film, he couldn't take the strain, wandered off into the frozen wastes and let himself be bumped off by the elements. He tried to condemn a bunch of sick people to die out of petty spite, so it wouldn’t be past him to react in such an extreme fashion.
It was originally scripted and storyboarded that Steele would succumb to another Villainous Breakdown and ambush Balto again not long after he and the team returned to Nome. Having been witnesses to the earlier fight back at the mountain, the sled dogs step in. The fight concludes with Steele getting his collar snagged on a lever and he is unable to get free. In rage, he pulls the lever forward, unaware that it opens a coal bin that is at the moment underneath him. Steele is accidentally hanged to death and falls out of the collar into the bin when his body goes limp.
When Steele crashes the sled, his musher is knocked out for several days in sub-zero Alaskan weather. Other than an easily-missed muttering when the dogs load him back onto the sled, he's unconscious the whole time. Did he survive the trip or not? And if he did, it's likely he got frostbite for his troubles.
It's quiet, but when the team arrives back in Nome and the townspeople come to gather the medicine, we can hear one of them by the musher say that he's going to be alright. Whether that's true or not is up for debate.
The first half of the White Wolf scene has Balto turn away from the wolf in question, looking rather depressed. It's sad enough on its own, but if you take Wolf Quest as canon, it hurts even worse. You'd probably feel ashamed too if your mother saw you at your lowest point.
