thing we saw was the car show with the classic American hotrod the Chevy 2 door pillarless from about 1957. There was no placard giving info, unlike the next exhibit so we are not sure about the precise details.
This one shows how hard Alaskans are on their machinery.
I managed to avoid getting jailed for not having a Golden Days pin on my shirt.
They drive this around the streets of Fairbanks arresting people who have to pay a "fine" or "appeal" to get out of jail. You can pay to get an arrest warrent for a friend! We dropped into the dance tent next to be greeted with a bunch of local “ladies” and some reluctant gents giving their all in a spirited recreation of a turn of the century bar scene.
This was great fun to watch and they finished up with a Can Can.
We visited the Eskimo and Alaskan Indian Olympics next day. The games are tests of pain, endurance and agility which have been handed down for centuries in Arctic villages. Some, like seal skinning and fish cutting contests, require practical skills for which competitors must have a good grasp of their native past. Others, like the ear pull, are as harsh as the Arctic environment that spawned them, demanding such high tolerance of pain they were once banned by missionaries because of their potential for crippling and maiming. But the games now include a beautiful baby contest or as we were to see, it was more about beautiful baby clothes.
There was a practical side to this display that I hope local anthropologists were taking note of. Grandmothers and great grandmothers were spending hours recreating in miniature the clothes that would have been everyday wear during the arctic winter. The result was a magnificent display of beautiful furs lovingly crafted and worn by 2 year olds. Sometimes the parent would be wearing a full size version of the child’s furs.
Carol was muttering about the wholesale slaughter of muskrat, weasel, otter, beaver, seal and anything else furry that preceded the sewing of these baby clothes.
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