Gayle Cederberg: The Fur Rendezvous Festival

Long before we moved to Anchorage, we heard of the Fur Rendezvous Festival through my husband’s brother, Delbert. In one of Delbert’s impromptu moments he decided to go to the Miners and Trappers Ball dressed as a Russian Cossack dancer. He was high on imagination but low on planning. He shaved all the hair off his head, went to a costume shop to rent a Russian costume, but there weren’t any! Since hearing that story, we were encouraged to participate.

Our first Fur Rondy was in February of 1984. We attended the parade and watched the fireworks. Our youngest child, Chris, a seventh grader at Mears Middle School, was ready to Rondy! I picked him up after school with newspaper in hand (Anchorage Times, of course); we sat in the car and decided which events to watch. We Rondyed for ten days.

Fur Rondy actually started in 1935. It was thought it would lift spirits and bring our isolated community of only 3,000 inhabitants together. Vern Johnson organized a three-day sports tournament and called it the Winter Sports Carnival. It was planned to be during the time the trappers came to town for their swap meet. The two events merged, and it was renamed the Fur Rendezvous.

Years ago all the men wore beards. It became a “law” at Rondy, and men were fined if they didn’t grow one. We attended the beard-growing contest. A beautiful, well-dressed Japanese woman was sitting in front of us with a cameraman and speaking into a microphone. She said she was an anchorwoman for a prominent TV station in Japan. “The Japanese are interested in this contest because Japanese men have very little hair on their face!”

Fur Rondy was canceled in 1942 during World War II and resumed in 1946. Some of the activities started in the early days were the 75-mile, three-day World Champion Sled Dog Race, starting in downtown Anchorage; skiing; hockey; basketball; and boxing. They also had a sled dog race for children. At night a bonfire and torchlight parade were enjoyed. Fur Rendezvous has royalty too; the Lord and Lady Trapper represent the city of Anchorage.

Some of the modern-day Rondy activities that have evolved are the Amateur Photo Contest, GCI Snow Sculpture Competition, the Rondy carnival—not many cities have rides and Ferris wheels in the snow!—Rondy Snowshoe Softball, and the Frostbite Footrace. Some of our favorites are the Rondy On Ice, the Running of the Reindeer, and the Rondy Grand Parade.

Along with the grand parade, we see a parade of Eskimo women who come to Anchorage wearing the most exquisite fur coats with gorgeous bead work (made of seal and many other kinds of fur). They come to see their friends; sell their handmade crafts of ivory, beads, and baleen; and participate in the Native Musicale (a hymn sing at Covenant Church, which has ties to Nunivak Island, where missionaries started a ministry). The Outhouse Race is comprised of outhouse-like structures with skis on the bottom, handcrafted by amateurs, which are pulled and pushed by teams of people down the Park Strip! While I was working at Clark Middle School, I convinced the shop teacher to have the kids build an outhouse to race, and they did.

For the Blanket Toss (held right downtown), Eskimo men circle and hold on to the “blanket,” which is really made of seal skin, and pull tight to toss lightweight people high up in the air—a traditional way to spot whales.

Other events include the Rondy Grand Prix (the oldest street race in the United States), State of Alaska Hide and Horn Auction, World Championship Outdoor Adult Hockey Tournament, Youth Outdoor Pond Hockey Tournament, Fur Auction, Vintage Snowmachine Parade, and the Miners and Trapper’s Charity Ball put on by the Mount McKinley Lions. Many of these activities are held numerous times during the ten days.

One of the most active organizations supporting Fur Rondy activities is the Mountain View Lion’s Club. Many years ago they owned a food trailer. Club members sold hot dogs, hamburgers, and popcorn. Food vendors didn’t like it, but they kept their prices low so the kids could buy the treats. In 1962, the Lions owned 18 bleachers that were hauled down to the parade route, and the rest came from the city of Anchorage. They used a boom truck donated by Anchorage Sand and Gravel and Spenard Builders. They sold the public tickets for $1 and could seat 550 to 600 people.

When the parade was over, the members asked all the people to leave the bleachers. They charged another dollar so they could sit and watch the World Champion Sled Dog Races. Lion Bill Ross bought tons of 2-inch-thick Styrofoam sheets and cut them up into 15-inch squares with his band saw. They were sold as cushions so it wouldn’t be so cold to sit on the bleachers. When the people left the bleachers, they often handed the cushions back so they didn’t have to carry them around town.

The Lions started Rondy button sales in 1962, at first from the Log Cabin Visitor Cabin. By the time we arrived in ’84, they were selling buttons all over the place, on street corners and in shopping malls. We helped out at the booth at Northway Mall for many years. Mountain View Lions has contributed significantly to the betterment of Anchorage and specifically in Mountain View. They developed a park and furnished it with substantial play equipment as well as two pavilions. At one point the City of Anchorage even thought the park belonged to them.

I decided when we moved to Anchorage to become involved in new activities. The first week we were in Anchorage, I went to the Cheechako Sweet Adelines rehearsal. I love music, and it turned out that the Adelines sang during Fur Rondy. They wrote their own melodrama, and we learned songs to sing with it. There was a lot of interaction with the audience. They even threw popcorn at us!!! It was, and is, a lot of fun to be a participant in Fur Rondy.

What does Fur Rondy do for Alaskans? It gives us something to focus on besides the dark and cold of winter!

It’s 2015—are we going to the 78th Fur Rondy this year? You bet.

 

 

 

Gayle Cederberg was born in St. Paul, Minnesota. She became a certified dental assistant through the University of Minnesota Dental School in 1958. Through a series of events, she met and married her husband, Richard, 56 years ago. After living in many states, in 1982 they came to and fell in love with Anchorage. Even now, two of their children and grandchildren live in the Anchorage bowl. Cederberg is active in her church and enjoys reading, attending Mountain View Lion’s club, Anchorage Genealogical Society, and going to as many events and activities as she can squeeze into her schedule. She is a member of the Anchorage Senior Center’s memoirs group, where she discovered that everyone has stories to tell. Her latest project is to publish a book about an Alaska doll.