Friends   ---

This is beginning the last week for Elva and me in Alaska.  We plan to head south next Tuesday morning.  This past week saw a lot of activity.  There were two week-long events that we watched a couple times.  The Fairbanks Golden Days is a celebration of the early history of Fairbanks and the gold that was involved in getting the city started.  In conjunction with that is the World Eskimo Indian Olympics.  Many of the events in this are the same as in the Arctic Winter Games a few months ago.

Here are some pictures of the Golden Days parade.

Early gold mining equipment.

Remembering the dresses from 100 years ago.

 There are only a few tractors around Fairbanks, so any tractor is somewhat of an oddity.

Tool used by wildfire fighters (about 18 x 18 inches).  It is used to stir up and stamp out hot embers.

 Bagpipe band

It must be the Klampets!

 Mustang the same year as one Larry had, only his was white.

 A little English car of some kind.

There were a couple Studebakers.

I agree with this guy!

This is probably the most authentic looking oldster.

Smokey must be doing a good job.  Forest fires in Alaska are way down from normal.  Actually, the past six weeks have been very wet.

This is a fire truck for the Fairbanks airport.  The second picture below is a close-up of the front.  That is Elva's maiden name, except they spell it wrong.  It should have a y instead of an i.

Next are some pictures of the World Eskimo Indian Olympics (WEIO.)  There are also some movie clips that do not transfer into blog form.  They will be attached to the e-mail reminder of this blog.  (If you get the blog and not the e-mail and would like to see the clips let me know and I will e-mail them to you.)

 This is a traditional seal oil lamp.  This particular one is about a foot across and is about 400 years old.  Seal oil, moss and a stick to keep it pushed together enough to keep burning.  In the igloos it was generally the task of the aged to keep the lamp burning.  This was supposed to be burning during the entire WEIO.

This is the arm pull.  Sorry for the fuzzy picture but when one started to over power the other they went fast.  Interesting - the little boy is the son of the competitor beside him.  The man had five children and they were all running all (except for the one-month old boy) around as the competitions progressed.

One of the more popular events was the children's clothing contest.

Butt hop competition.

Ear pull.  This is to simulate the pain of an ear with frost bite.

 Knuckle hop - body flat, hop on knuckles and toes.

 Ear pull or seal pull.

 Be sure to watch the movie clip of walking on the greased pole.  Crisco direct from the can slathered on the pole.  It must have been very slick, the woman who was second in the woman's contest only went 19 inches.The man who won went the length of the pole which was about 8 feet.

We did this when I was in high school.  Kick one - two - three, hook legs and try to flip your opponent.

Adult clothing contest.

Too old to be in the baby contest.


Over 3000 beads in the headpiece.  She did it all herself.



WEIO Queen candidates, except the girl on the far right.  She was the out-going queen.  The candidate in the middle won.

 Seal ready for the seal skinning competition.

 There were four seals to be skinned.    The winning lady skinned her seal in a little less than three minutes.  Be sure to watch the movie clip of this.  The lady in the clip was the winner.  She us using an ulu, an Eskimo knife.

 Toe knuckle walk.

 Walrus head push.

 Four man carry - just what it says, four guys all hang onto the competitor and he walks as far as he can.  Each one hanging on is to weigh about 150 pounds.

This is a different event not connected with the WEIO.  This is the potato dance where the dancers must keep the potato held up between their foreheads.  Dancers cannot just stand there but are given dance moves they must do while keeping the potato from falling.

Be sure to watch the movie clips with the e-mail.

I hope to keep sending a blog about once per week for a few more weeks.  That will get us back to the Midwest.  For a couple Tuesdays we will be on the road but I will try to do a blog of our travels.  It will be nice getting back to the lower 48 but we will miss Alaska.

Larry and Elva.