Ren-Dez-Vous Come ON!

Friday marked the start of Fur Rendezvous (or "Fur Rondy" as a lot of the lazy people locals call it).  I had never really heard of this magical time of year until I moved up here, so we'll start with a little background from the official Fur Rondy website:

"The Fur Rondy Festival is a significant part of the history and tradition of Anchorage. In the mid 1930's, Anchorage was just a small town of about 3,000 people that stretched between Park Strip and Ship Creek. There were no televisions, malls or movie theaters, no video games, ipods or computers, not even an Iditarod! Winters were brutal and stoking fires, shoveling snow and surviving the elements was the basic daily pastime in those days.

Vern Johnson, the father of the Fur Rendezvous, was a likeable, outgoing Anchorage citizen with a keen understanding of social conditions. He and his friends decided to establish a 3-day Festival to coincide with the time that the miners and trappers came to town with their winter's yield. It began as a three-day sports tournament on February 15, 16 and 17, 1935 and featured skiing, hockey, basketball, boxing and a children's sled dog race down Fourth Avenue. Nearly the entire population of Anchorage turned out for the bonfire and torchlight parade.

Since then, the Fur Rendezvous has earned national and international notoriety, and visitors from throughout the world descend on Anchorage every February."

Fur Rendezvous is like a holiday in Anchorage, and it's also a kind of time marker.  You hear people say "Oh it's already February and then we'll have Fur Rondy and then it's basically spring!" It's sort of the unofficial beginning to the end of winter around here.  It's also a BIG DEAL.  The title of this blog post is an ode to the Fur Rondy song that they play on commercials on the local TV channels that haven't been updated since the 1980s.  If you ask really nice, Andy will even sing it for you.  

Obviously this was not something we would miss.  I picked up an official guide about two weeks ago and spent a significant amount of time planning out which events we'd be sure to see.  

One of the first stops was to purchase official pins.  People get Rondy pins.  It's a thing.  There's no explanation.  I got a fancy one and Andy got a less fancy one.

While the parade was not on my list of "must sees," we caught a good chunk of it on our way to scope out a sweet spot for the dog sled races.  

Before we even got to the parade route, we saw a guy walking a reindeer/caribou (nobody has explained the difference to me yet, so I'm going to use the words interchangeably until someone does).  Her name is Star and she likes rooting in the snow.  As we took pictures everyone in town was saying "hey! It's Star!" She's like Anchorage's Lil' Sebastian. 

They also do horse-drawn carriage rides.  The horses were very fancy.

We caught the Bernese Mountain Dog Club of Alaska.  This picture is for you, mom and dad.

Oh and this one, too.  Puppy!

Like all good parades, the Shriners were there!

And we decided all parades should have someone dressed like Boba Fett.

Pins? Check.  Parade? Check! Off to the sled races!

Fur Rendezvous hosts the "World Championship Sled Dog Race."  Dogs leave downtown and race about 25 miles through town.  It takes roughly 70-90 minutes for the dogs to make the whole trip.  Ripley has a new goal!  The dog sled races start at the same starting line that the Iditarod uses...which just happens to fall at the end of Fur Rendezvous.  We'll check it out next weekend.  

Before the race started, we walked around a little bit.  Andy caught this incredible sweater on film and I had to share:

We also checked out the dog trucks.  The first time I saw one of these in town I thought it was the dog catcher! 

Not all the teams were huskies.  In fact, most weren't.  This is not the nose of a husky.

These are police snowmobiles snowmachines.  Where else but Anchorage do you see cops riding around on ski doos?

Bad boys, bad boys, watcha gonna do...

After the police cleared the track, it was time for the dogs to run!  They start slowest first.  The first team was the only team participating that was comprised of all-huskies.  Apparently huskies are no longer the dog of choice for sled teams.

Before they start running, a large group of people has to physically hold the dogs back.  Once they let them go, you can see why.  They LOVE RUNNING.

Then came one of the "mutt" teams.  Andy and I wondered if they just went to the humane society and picked out the craziest dogs.

Look - this black one looks half greyhound!

This one howled the whole way down Fourth Avenue. Arooooo!

After the sled races, we headed to the carnival.  Nothing spells fun like a ferris wheel ride in 20 degree weather!

We decided to pass on the rides.  Next stop - snow sculptures!

They did them under the bridge.  Kind of random.  This was not a part of town I had ever visited before.

Most of the sculptures were in process.  I think we'll try to check them out this week when they're all done.  It was really fun to watch the artists at work though!

This was one of my favorites.  The carvers trapped themselves inside!

By this time, our feet were totally frozen, so we headed up to the Snow Goose and had a couple of drinks to warm up.  After an hour or two inside, we were ready to head back out for more Fur Rondezvous fun!

Now...they don't call it "Fur Rondezvous" for nothing.  They still do a fur auction.  I think these whole foxes went for $100 each.  Pretty cool if you want to wear a dead fox!

Wolf? Beaver? Skunk? Who knows...

Naturally, you also see a lot of people wearing fur at Fur Rendezvous.  Honestly, you see a lot of people wearing fur in Anchorage all the time in the winter.  This guy was my absolute favorite:

CHEWBACCA! Here he is from another angle, terrorizing a small child (who is also covered in fur):

Right near the fur auction was the blanket toss.  This is one of the original Fur Rendezvous events.  Also, it's pretty self explanatory.

I really like that it's a community thing. Anyone can toss or be tossed.  Also, it's less of a blanket and more of a pelt.

This is one of the best pictures.  Of anything.  Ever.

This little girl is probably about 5.  She was really brave!

Finally...the main event.  Fur Rendezvous has the privilege of being home to the world's largest outhouse races.  Not like those other lame outhouse races you may have seen elsewhere.

Here's the quick and dirty explanation: teams build outhouses, put them on skis, and race them down the street.  I think one of the rules was that one of the team members had to be on the actual toilet.  Classy!

They started with a parade of the outhouses:

Doctor Who outhouse:

This one is the epitome of simplicity - bucket on a stick.

I liked this one.  They called themselves the "Pooh Pushers."  Again, classy.

Most of the teams threw candy.  This girl snuck around the fence and CLEANED UP.

I'm fairly certain you have to have some sort of minimum blood alcohol content to participate in the outhouse races.  Also, you have to have an awesome sense of humor.

The Rondy Court showed up for the event.  Here are the queen and her princesses.  I wonder if they get to keep those coats?

After the parade, it was time to race.  The racers only go about a half block, turn around and then race back to the start.  We were right at the turnaround!

As you can imagine, there was a lot of falling:

Most of the races were not close.  We figured there were some good design tips that set the winners apart.  For example, using snowboards instead of skis seemed to add a lot of stability.  This race was close, but mostly because both of the outhouses were giant and hard to push around.

The rule was that if you hit the turnaround sign, you had to donate $10 to the race. Most teams didn't seem to care.

We had pondered staying for fireworks, but our feet were frozen and it was starting to snow by the time we left at 5pm and we decided it was enough.  By the time we got home it was dumping snow and we were happy to be home (and Ripley was happy we were home) - besides, we need to pack.  We get the keys to our new house tomorrow!!

Fur Rendezvous goes through next weekend and I'm sure we'll catch some more events between now and the time it ends.  Especially the Iditarod start.  I know it's not fun to be in Anchorage in the winter cold, but I highly recommend that you all come visit us during Fur Rondy.  It's really fun and very uniquely Alaskan!