Fur Rendezvous Time in Anchorage

The image below is the Iron Dog race start — not exactly downtown Anchorage, but this weekend starts the big dogsled races which is right downtown on Fourth Avenue. This is the longest running race around, but now competes with the big Iditarod Race, the Idabike, and the Yukon Quest.

Fur Rendezvous is a festival of sorts which has changed over the years to a point where the actual fur auction was deleted, but now is back again this year . .. Monte Carlo night was one of my favorites too, but they haven’t brought that back yet. . . however, there is a heap of displays, carnival rides, exhibits, dances and melodramas. The King and Queen Regent are chosen from the Pioneers of Alaska, together with Miss Fur Trapper. This year’s chosen are Ray and Jean Lee, and the coronation is an elegant ceremony at Pioneer Hall. The Pioneers of Alaska have a weekend pancake breakfast, with continuing seating, which draws over a thousand people each year. I’ll post some of the images when I get to steal some. I’ll give credit if I can find such. Anyhow, we’re waiting for YOU to visit.

Anchorage Swings

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We go a little crazy up here with the long, cold winter, and this image shows one of the diversions the ladies thought up. . . they picked a below zero day, and the same day as the Super Bowl, to dress up in costumes, and have a cross country ski rally. There were 1100 of them, but I wasn’t one.
Indoors, we had the Martha Graham dance troupe . . . and the opera’s on this week, and a new play, The Ballad of Soapy Smith. . . on a personal note, the Alaska Magic Circle puts on 4 performances on Valentine’s day weekend, and I’ve chosen a ‘romantic magic’ theme for my part. All of these activities are leading up to the big Fur Rendezvous celebration, followed by the Iditarod Race to Nome.
Speaking of that, on a political note, our nationally famous governor has proposed a road to Nome, which doesn’t make much sense. One pundit refers it as the “Road to Nome-where”. Keep posted!