Fur Rondevous

My family and I took in some Fur Rondy fun last weekend. Beautiful, clear blue skies made for cold days and wind gusts up to 80 mph made things extra challenging, but we bundled up and headed out to enjoy the festivities. Fur Rondy is something I've been enjoying since childhood, and I love being able to share the same winter festival fun with my own children 20 some years later. My two year old, Ella, loves dogs these days, so she was super excited to get to go watch the World Championship Sled Dog Races, despite the cold.

The Fur Rondy Festival is a significant part of the history and tradition of Anchorage. In the mid 1930's, Anchorage was just a small town of about 3,000 people that stretched between Park Strip and Ship Creek. Winters were brutal and stoking fires, shoveling snow and surviving the elements was the basic daily pastime in those days. Vern Johnson, the father of the Fur Rendezvous, was a likeable, outgoing Anchorage citizen with a keen understanding of social conditions. He and his friends decided to establish a 3-day Festival to coincide with the time that the miners and trappers came to town with their winter's yield. It began as a three-day sports tournament on February 15, 16 and 17, 1935 and featured skiing, hockey, basketball, boxing and a children's sled dog race down Fourth Avenue.

Since then, the Fur Rendezvous has earned national and international notoriety, and visitors from throughout the world descend on Anchorage every February.

Despite the passage of time and a multitude of modern diversions, Fur Rendezvous remains a highly anticipated time of year. There are still many Fur Rendezvous events that have withstood the test of time and continue to maintain their unique character.

The World Championship Sled Dog Race debuted in 1946 and has become the cornerstone event of the Festival bringing teams of sled dogs and mushers to Anchorage from across Alaska and all over the world. Four decades later, dog owners are still competing against each other for the cash, notoriety and the illustrious World Champion title for the event. Other traditional Fur Rondy events include the Rondy Carnival, the Grand Parade, running with the reindeer, parade, fireworks, snow sculptures, Yukigassen (snowball fight), the uniquely Alaskan Original Men's Snowshoe Softball and the Grand Prix Auto Race, one of the oldest street races in North America.