spring carnival | chasing piggens

There are four youth dog races: six dogs (ages 13-17), four dogs (ages 9-12), two dogs (ages 6-8) and one dog (ages five and under). I missed the four-dog race, but made it to the other three. I love watching the dogs run, mostly because of the silence and speed. It’s the sailing of snow-travel: no growling engine, no roaring and clattering, just the smooth slikkkk of the runners on the snow. I was pleased to see so many of my students, more girls than boys, racing six dogs. I hear them talk about it sometimes: “My dad always makes me race” or “you just have to try not to fall off” but you can see they’re proud to be doing what they’re doing and having a good time.One of these dogs, called Princess Peach, has the distinction of being half again as old as her musher. Their home was on the course, so to keep the dogs from running home, the young gal’s grandpa ran the course with them.

The one-dog race is hilarious: the bigger kids can stand on the runners and hang on, but the smaller kids just get tucked into the sled and sent on their way. The announcer and spectators call the dog (though these dogs hardly need calling: they clearly love to run) and someone chases down the sled when it crosses the finish line. Folks in the audience laughed about the old days when you’d just strap a baby into the sled and set it on its way, hoping for the best. There was one mishap when a skittish dog decided to run the wrong way. A quick-thinking spectator made a dive for the sled and dug in his heels, but, if he hadn’t, that dog could have hauled the child halfway to Big Lake before anyone caught him.

After school dismissed today, everyone hustled to the spring carnival. I watched the start of the men’s four-mile snowshoe race with a few other teachers. Five of my kids crammed themselves onto a four-wheeler and watched for a while, then took off to sell raffle tickets. I bought two for a moose hide.We waited for a while, but soon realized that the pie-eating contest wasn’t going to start until the race ended. It takes a while to go four miles on snowshoes, so we headed home for a snack. The way things unfolded, we missed the pie-eating contest and the baby contest altogether, but it was well worth it. Three of us hiked out to Big Lake and checked out one of the islands.

I even found time for a paddle!

I swear I’ll make it to more of carnival tomorrow, and I promise I’ll take pictures at the princess coronation on Friday. I’m being bold and heading out to the dance now. I’m going to hide in the back so nobody asks me to dance, unless it’s a square dance, in which case I’ll tear it up. Who knows?

Two hours later:

Athabascans fiddle like folks in the Appalachians. I danced once with an elderly fellow who wore a necklace of bear’s teeth and caribou legskin moccasins. He told me that his sister had made them for him before she passed away. He also had on a particular sort of hat that I’ve seen here before, a slouchy black cap with a white bow on the front. He came up to about my nose, and his eyes disappeared when he smiled.

The second dance seemed to last forever: it was a line dance, but it wasn’t called like contra, so I felt pretty clueless at first. There were five couples, and one led. The pattern wasn’t too complicated, which made it easy to follow but not too interesting to dance. There was a lot of bopping in place, waiting to swing someone down the line, which was good because it went on for so long that I had to keep running to the seat where I’d stashed my stuff to strip off more layers.

As I was leaving, a fourteen-year-old girl I know was demanding they do a square dance next and grinning. Maybe I should have stayed, but it’s late and there’s school tomorrow. I walked home in my t-shirt, sweating from the long dance and giggling at the dancing aurora. Carnival is a good time.