Fur Rendezvous Festival

Last updated

The Fur Rendezvous Festival (usually called Fur Rendezvous, Fur Rondy, or simply Rondy) is an annual winter festival held in Anchorage, Alaska, in late February. The self-styled "largest winter festival in North America", Fur Rendezvous is highly anticipated by many Anchorage-area residents as marking the beginning of the end of a long winter and the approach of spring. In 2012, Fur Rendezvous was selected as the number one winter carnival in the world by the National Geographic Traveler. [1]

Contents

History and origins

The name "Fur Rendezvous" derives from swap meets at which fur trappers would gather to sell their winter harvests. In early Anchorage, these usually took place in mid-February.

In 1935, Anchorage had a population of only about 3,000 and was very isolated, so to bring the community together and lift spirits, resident Vern Johnson organized a three-day sports tournament, called the Winter Sports Carnival, timed to coincide with the rendezvous, which brought increased activity. As the fur trade was then the second-largest industry in Alaska, folding it into the event seemed natural, and it was renamed the Winter Sports Tournament and Fur Rendezvous from 1937, and later just Fur Rendezvous.

It was common for miners and trappers to have beards in the early days, so a "law" was even made that all men had to grow beards for this event or suffer a fine! This was considered to be part of the fun, because most men participated in it.

Fur Rendezvous was canceled during the war years, but resumed in 1946, when the festival began to draw visitors from Outside, and has been held every year since. Since 1955 the event has been run by the non-profit Greater Anchorage, Inc.

Traditionally Fur Rendezvous lasted ten days, but since 2004 it has extended through early March, in order to lead into the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race and draw more visitors.

2021 will see a modified festival, but the Open World Championship Sled Dog Race will be on hiatus until 2022.

Events

The original Winter Sports Carnival included skiing, hockey, basketball, boxing, and a sled dog race for children, as well as a bonfire and torchlight parade. Modern Rondy has well over 100 events; some of the more significant include:

Many events tend toward the whimsical, such as the Outhouse Races (in which teams build outhouses and pull them on skis with a rider inside), ice bowling, or even snowshoe softball matches. Others focus on Alaska Native culture, such as the Multi-Tribal Gathering and Charlotte Jensen Native Arts Market.

Pins

Since 1939, promotional pins have been created and sold each year to raise money for the event. These pins have become popular collectibles, and older or rare pins can sell well in excess of $100. The Kiwanis Club of Anchorage nee University Kiwanis Club sells pins and booster buttons dressed as Keystone Cops for the duration of the festival. During the parade the Keystone Cops, or "Rondy Kops," playfully detain attendees in a mobile jail until pins or buttons are purchased in exchange for their release.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race</span> Trail Sled Dog Race in Alaska

The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, more commonly known as The Iditarod, is an annual long-distance sled dog race held in Alaska in early March. It travels from Anchorage to Nome. Mushers and a team of between 12 and 16 dogs, of which at least 5 must be on the towline at the finish line, cover the distance in 8–15 days or more. The Iditarod began in 1973 as an event to test the best sled dog mushers and teams but evolved into today's highly competitive race.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sled dog</span> Working dog

A sled dog is a dog trained and used to pull a land vehicle in harness, most commonly a sled over snow.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sled dog racing</span> Sport

Sled dog racing is a winter dog sport most popular in the Arctic regions of the United States, Canada, Russia, Greenland and some European countries. It involves the timed competition of teams of sled dogs that pull a sled with the dog driver or musher standing on the runners. The team completing the marked course in the least time is judged the winner.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Balto</span> Sled dog

Balto was an Alaskan husky and sled dog belonging to musher and breeder Leonhard Seppala. He achieved fame when he led a team of sled dogs driven by Gunnar Kaasen on the final leg of the 1925 serum run to Nome, in which diphtheria antitoxin was transported from Anchorage, Alaska, to Nenana, Alaska, by train and then to Nome by dog sled to combat an outbreak of the disease.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quebec Winter Carnival</span> Annual festival in Canada

The Quebec Winter Carnival, commonly known in both English and French as Carnaval, is a pre-Lenten festival held in Quebec City. After being held intermittently since 1894, the Carnaval de Québec has been celebrated annually since 1955. That year, Bonhomme Carnaval, the mascot of the festival, made his first appearance. Up to one million people attended the Carnaval de Québec in 2006 making it, at the time, the largest winter festival in the world. It is, however, the largest winter festival in the Western Hemisphere.

Joe Redington, Senior was an American dog musher and kennel owner, who is best known as the "Father of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race", a long distance sled dog race run annually from the Anchorage area to Nome, Alaska.

Dorothy G. Page was best known as "Mother of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race", the 1,049-mile dog sled race across the U.S. state of Alaska.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DeeDee Jonrowe</span> American kennel owner and dog musher

DeeDee Ann Jonrowe is an American kennel owner and dog musher who is a three-time runner up in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. She is a very popular figure in the sport, and her completion of the 1,049-mile+ race in 2003 just three weeks after completing chemotherapy for breast cancer received widespread publicity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Skijoring</span> Winter sport involving being pulled on skis

Skijoring is a winter sport in which a person on skis is pulled by a horse, a dog, another animal, or a motor vehicle. The name is derived from the Norwegian word skikjøring, meaning "ski driving". Although skijoring is said to have originated as a mode of winter travel, it is currently primarily a competitive sport.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ramy Brooks</span> Alaska Native dog musher, kennel owner, and motivational speaker

Ramy "Ray" Brooks is an Alaska Native kennel owner and operator, motivational speaker, and dog musher who specializes in long-distance races. He is a two-time runner up in the 1,049+ mi Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race across the U.S. state of Alaska, and a former winner of the 1,000 mi (1,600 km) Yukon Quest dog sled race across both Canada and the U.S.

<i>Woodsong</i> Collection of memoirs by Gary Paulsen

Woodsong is a book of memoirs by Gary Paulsen. The first half consists of Paulsen's early experiences running sled dogs in Minnesota and then in Alaska, and the second half describes the roads and animals he faces in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wasilla, Alaska</span> City in Alaska, United States

The City of Wasilla (Dena'ina: Benteh) is a city in Matanuska-Susitna Borough, United States and the fourth-largest city in Alaska. It is located on the northern point of Cook Inlet in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley of the southcentral part of the state. The city's population was 9,054 at the 2020 census, up from 7,831 in 2010. Wasilla is the largest city in the borough and a part of the Anchorage metropolitan area, which had an estimated population of 398,328 in 2020.

Fur Rondy has been held in Anchorage, Alaska during the late winter since 1950. It is a celebration of the time when trappers would return to the city to gather and share stories, sell their furs and antlers, and to socialize. It also commemorates the start of the Iditarod. One part of Fur Rondy is the Miners and Trappers Ball, which is a fundraiser for the Lions Club's of Alaska. The Miners and Trappers Ball has a yearly theme focused on one part of Alaskan life. The highlight of the Miners and Trappers Ball is the Mr. Fur Face beard contest. The contest is sponsored by the South central Alaska Beard and Mustache Club.

Ice bowling is a variant of traditional ten-pin bowling in that it is played on ice, usually outdoors.

<i>Spirit of the Wind</i> 1979 American film

Spirit of the Wind is a 1979 American Northern film directed by Ralph Liddle and starring Chief Dan George, Slim Pickens, Pius Savage, and George Clutesi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Albert Campbell (dogsled racer)</span> Canadian musher and trapper (1894-1961)

Albert Campbell was French-Cree (Métis) Canadian musher and trapper. He gained popularity as a Canadian "national hero" after winning the 1917 Red River Derby sled dog race.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Attla</span> Native American dog musher

George Attla was a champion sprint dog musher. Attla won ten Anchorage Fur Rendezvous Championships and eight North American Open championships with a career that spanned from 1958 to 2011. Attla was the subject of a 1993 book titled George Attla: The Legend of the Sled-dog Trail, by Lewis "Lew" Freedman.

The Northern Manitoba Trappers’ Festival is an annual winter festival held in February in The Pas, Manitoba, Canada. It is Manitoba’s oldest festival and one of Canada’s oldest winter festivals. The festival celebrates a wide variety of skills and activities that were, and in many cases still are, a matter of survival for life in Northern Canada, including ice fishing, muskrat skinning, tea boiling, bannock baking, and chain saw events. The highlight of the festival is the sled dog race, known as the World Championship Dog Race.

References

  1. "Winter Carnivals", National Geographic Traveler, January/February 2012.
  2. Running of the Reindeer listing, official Fur Rondy website. Accessed 2017.

61°13′06″N149°53′23″W / 61.21833°N 149.88972°W / 61.21833; -149.88972