Winter Carnival At Anchorage

Press, Volume C, Issue 29490, 17 April 1961, Page 2

Winter Carnival At Anchorage

(By a Reuter Correspondent)

ANCHORAGE. An Eskimo ballet, a beardgrowing contest, election of an Arctic beauty queen and sled dog racing were highlights of this year’s winter carnival here, still known by its old name of the Fur Rendezvous. But in this land of snow and huskies, the spotlight was on the gruelling sled dog race won by 1961 world sled dog champion racer Leo Kriska, of the remote Eskimo village of Koyukuk, from a field of 23 dog-teams. Kriska, 29. mushed his way to the championship by moving from fourth place at the end of the second heat to win the 75mile Sled Dog classic. His 12dog team had a total elapsed time of five hours, 52 minutes and 10 seconds —an average pace of 12.6 miles per hour. Massachusetts musher. Dr. Roland Lombard was placed second in a hair-line finish of 55 seconds between champion and runner-up as the teams whizzed over the gruelling 25-mile trail.

Ironically, abnormally low snowfall made difficulties for the race, which features Eskimo drivers from above the Arctic Circle, and visiting Alaskan and “outside” mushers. No snow fell on the first two days of the contest and while a snowstorm on the final day added .8 inch, the ground cover was the lowest on record since 1942. City street crews hauled 100 lorry-loads of snow to the start and finish line in midtown Anchorage, and dumped it along several city blocks. The 25-mile race course winds from the city centre towards the Chugach foothills and back, over undulating terrain.

Champion Kriska’s share of the 7000 dollar (£2,300) purse amounts to 1850 dollars (£ 620). It is a sizeable amount in the bush country where the native residents make part-time income by trapping beaver, ermine and muskrat. Kriska, his wife and family of seven children live in a village where the Koyukuk river joins the Yukon river in a drainage basin of the Arctic ranges. His next race will be in the North American Champion dog team races in Fairbanks. Alaska. Meanwhile his sled dogs are training. For a start, Kriska treated each dog to a T-bone steak after their Fur Rendezvous win, as a reward, and, a change from their usual died of smoked fish. Another far-north feature of the Fur Rendezvous programme was a beard-grow-ing contest to decide “Mr Fur Face of 1961.” The event classified side-bums and chin whiskers into Alaska wildlife categories, such as wolf, Toklat Grizzly, black bear, beaver and fox. This year’s trophy went to Mr Ed Ueeck of Sheep Mountain, Alaska, declared bearded champion for the furriest face. The annual winter carnival is a fun fiesta lasting a week and features unique north-country events and customs.

The famed Eskimo ballet team from faraway King Island in the Behring Sea is always a highly popular attraction at twice-daily performances of their centuriesold folk dances. It was the 13th year this Eskimo dance troupe had flown into Anchorage for appearances. Dressed in fur parkas, face masks and native garments, accompanied by skin drums, they danced in graphic pantomimes depicting their life in the Arctic.

Various rhythms, with wails and chants in the native tongue, portrayed events in a typical day in an Eskimo village. There was a welcome dance, a contest dance and a mimicry of wild animals hunts. Realism was given at the end of the hunt dance with the skinning of a seal, whose bide and meat were auctioned to the audience. A modem innovation was that instead of fur trousers as formerly worn, the male performers substituted garments of white

nylon fabric, obtained from military surplus parachute materials. The Rendezvous opened with a torchlight parade in the sub-arctic night, with participants dressed in Eski-mo-type parkas, mukluks (footwear) or colourful outdoor sports wear. It included an auction of Alaska jade; ivory carving demonstrations by Eskimos; the Eskimo “blanket” toss, actually done with a walrus hide; rock and mineral exhibits, a Trade Fair, sports car races with foreign car entries, and selection of a beauty queen at a public talent show.

The first Fur Rendezvous 25 years ago was a real rendezvous to bring together trappers and fur buyers at auctions of Alaska's rich furs. But decline in commercial fur ranching and the introduction of synthetic fabrics tapered off the importance of the auctions, although each year there is still an outdoor fur auction. This year mink, marten, fox, wolf and seal were among the pelts sold.

The old-time rendezvous between town folk, visitors and the bush-country trappers was an important break in a sometimes lonely life in the northland.

The get-together spirit of the original Rendezvous still prevails as the cetnral theme of the Rendezvous which now attracts visitors from throughout Alaska and foreign countries. The 1961 Beauty Queen, Miss Teresa Hanson, a blonde 18-year-old Anchorage High School senior, will "reign” for one year and take part in civic functions. In August, she will compete in the State-wide contest for the Miss Alaska title, a preliminary of the nation “Miss America” contest.