Fur RONDY!!

Big news, everyone!

Today was the official start of the long Anchorage tradition called Fur Rendezvous (Fur Rondy for short).  You'll have to excuse my use of wikipedia for source references here, but as I understand it, Fur Rondy started back in the 1930s as a way to excite the 3000-person community in mid-February, when it feels like winter will never end.  It was tied to fur swap meets that used to happen in the city.

Now Fur Rondy is a GIANT festival that occurs for 2 weeks, ending with the start of the Iditarod.  The festival basically takes over downtown, and it includes fun events like: a carnival, running with reindeer, a fur bikini contest, blanket tosses, and the ceremonial start to the Iditarod.

Fur Rondy also means the infamous Anchorage hot dog guy makes a brief winter showing, before he hides again until spring time (when he's out in full force for the tourists).  This is the place to go for both reindeer sausage and kosher (yes, that's right . . . KOSHER!) hot dogs.

Today there was much celebrating in the streets, so some of the clerks left the office and ventured down 4th Avenue for the beginning of the sled dog races.

These races are a bit different than the Iditarod.  They occur over 3 days, with the dogs running 25 miles per day (pretty short for sled dog races).  So these dogs are trained for speed rather than endurance.  They're called sprinter dogs.

Anchorage goes around and puts a ton of snow down on the streets.  This becomes the track for the dogs.  It's really weird to see all these streets that have been (somewhat) plowed all winter suddenly covered with snow.  But it makes for some pretty fast runs for the dogs:

The police get to drive around on snowmachines making sure the tracks are clear and that everything is running smoothly.

We spent some time down at the street watching the races.  We also got to realize just how dangerous this sport is.  In the time we were there, we saw 2 pretty big crashes.  In the first instance, the dogs decided they didn't want to run on the track, and instead decided to make a wide left onto another street directly into traffic.  The musher, trying to control the dogs, fell and grabbed onto the sleds.  But because there's no way to really stop the dogs aside from voice commands once they're going, he ended up getting dragged a few feet before handlers could stop the dogs.  He was ok, and back on track a few minutes later, but it was pretty scary.  You won't be able to see the video of the fall (I stopped the camera), but if you watch this video you'll see the dogs make the turn off the track at the very end:

We also watched a second guy fall off the sled pretty much right at the start.  Even though he was no longer directing them, the dogs just kept running.  They really love to run.  A group of 3 handlers about 100 feet away finally tackled the dogs (literally jumped onto the reins) and stopped them.  They composed themselves and kept going.   But watching these accidents, you come to realize how dangerous the sport is, how fast these dogs go, how little control people have over their actions aside from voice commands, and how scary that could be on an 1100 mile race out in the open cold.

Anyway, we'll keep updating with more Fur Rondy as events progress.  Tonight we're going to a funny melodrama (if you don't know what a melodrama is, think this: