Fur Rondy - 2009

Each winter Anchorage has the Fur Rendezvous Winter Carnival that takes places over 2 weeks. They have a lot of events around town, a carnival, dog races, fireworks and a lot more. It is a big event that always draws big crowds. One of my favorite events is a new one. It debuted last year and was a HUGE success. It is called the "Running of the Reindeer". It is an idea created by 2 local DJ's that wanted an event similar to the "Running of the Bulls" in Spain, but with an Alaskan twist, thus this event was born. Last year they had over 1,000 people sign up for the inaugural event and this year was even bigger with a celebrity heat, a men's heat, a women's heat and a group / couples heat. Many of the runners dress up in funny costumes for the event, some of our favorite were: Santa, an 8 foot tall Easter Bunny, the Geico Caveman, all of the members of the band KISS, lots of people in swimsuits (the temp was about 15), a bride and groom in full tux and wedding dress wear and several others. Sherri and I got downtown about an hour and a half before the start so we could get a good spot to watch the races. The running covers a 2 block area in downtown Anchorage and thousands of people line the streets to watch the event. They release about a dozen reindeer for each race and again this year, there were no serious injuries.

We took a bunch of pictures and here are some of them (click on each picture to make it bigger):

(view of the crowd on our side of the street)

(start of the men's race about 2 blocks down from us)


(here come the men running towards us)


(getting closer, notice one of the reindeer in the middle, the Easter bunny on the right and the Geico Caveman on the left)

(at the finish line)


(a couple of the smaller reindeer. About 20 feet from this reindeer was a hot dog vendor selling reindeer sausage hot dogs, how is that for irony! Also, yes we had some, and yes they were delicious!!!)