Winter Carnival offers frozen fun

SANDPOINT — This year’s Sandpoint Winter Carnival will look altogether different from cold-season celebrations of the past.  The small but stalwart committee behind the event has added yet another major crowd-pleaser to the six-day carnival, scheduled for Jan. 12-17, while at the same time considering an eventual return to some of the folksy roots that made the outdoor spectacle a family favorite.

Winter Carnival rose like a frozen Phoenix out of a dusting of snow in 2009, after the Greater Sandpoint Chamber of Commerce decided not to steer the event any longer due to lack of staffing and volunteers.  A core group of true believers — basically the same five people who had been doing the heavy lifting as a chamber committee — jumped in to revive the January mainstay.

“We got together and said, ‘Let’s re-create the Winter Carnival,’” said committee member Denise Alveari, who credited Pend Oreille Winery owner and fellow committee member Steve Meyer and Sleep’s Cabins owner Tawnie Sleep as the most adamant voices for working to salvage the event.

“Steve and Tawnie spearheaded the idea and said, ‘You know, we’ve got to keep this going,’” said Kathleen Hyde, outgoing executive director for the Downtown Sandpoint Business Association.  “The 2009 carnival was all last-minute, but it was successful.”

In 2010, the event was swept under the DSBA umbrella, where it received a tight budget of just $700 and once again was pulled off under the wire.

“It’s still that way,” said Alveari.  “And it’s still the same core group of people working on it.”

The most noticeable change for 2011, however, was a five-fold increase in the carnival budget, which now comes in at $3,500 thanks to a Sandpoint Urban Renewal Grant the DSBA received last year for event enhancement and marketing. 

Most of that money goes to pay for the rail jam competition, a 30-foot high and nearly 100-foot long urban rail course that Hyde described as “the seed of our downtown winter carnival.”  Over the past two carnivals, the rail jam and the bonfires surrounding it have attracted well over 1,000 onlookers to Jeff Jones Square.

Returning for 2011 will be the wildly popular performance by the Bio-Luminesce FireDance troupe, founded by Travis Engle, which lights up the winter night with fire-breathing and breath-taking, choreographed dance routines in flame on Third Avenue, just outside the winery’s west entrance.

At Schweitzer, winter carnival brings a torchlight parade and fireworks display, among several other mountaintop activities.

New this year is the two-day “skijoring” event at the Bonner County Fairgrounds, making Sandpoint the first stop on North American Skijoring Association’s national circuit.

“It’s like water-skiing, but with a horse and snow,” said Alveari.  “One horse, one rope, one skier — although there will be boarders, too.”

“It’s a high-speed event where a horse pulls a skier through a course full of slalom gates and jumps,” said Matt Smart, owner of Mountain Horse Adventures, located at Schweitzer, and a member of the skijoring association.  “Skijoring is huge over in Whitefish (Montana).  It’s the pivotal event for their winter carnival and I think it’s really going to take off here, too, once we get it off the ground.”

In Whitefish, where the association is based, an audience of 14,000 turned out to watch the most recent skijoring competition, according to Hyde.

“The participants and the people who travel here to watch the event will put heads in beds at our local hotels,” she said.  “It’s the same with the rail jam.  Lots of people staying overnight means it’s a great opportunity for our hotels and eateries.”

To take full advantage of the crowds, many local merchants will participate once again this year in Dine Around Sandpoint and Shop Around Sandpoint, both of which feature special pricing and prizes for customers.

A newcomer for 2011 will be the Family Fun Day activities on the Cedar Street Bridge, building on the large audience that gathers for the unrestrained hilarity of the K-9 Keg Pull.  In that event, local pooches race to see which one can haul an empty beer keg — a beer can for the smallest competitors — down the alleyway next to Eichardt’s Pub & Grill in record time.

“I think we have a really well-balanced winter carnival this year, with events downtown, up at Schweitzer Mountain Resort and out at the fairgrounds,” Hyde said.  “It’s a true partnership.  Sandpoint’s the heart of it all, but within a short drive, you can get to so many other activities.”

Many residents remember Sandpoint Winter Carnival as a downtown party that was made up of snow sculpting, a parade and a bonfire so large that it shot sparks several hundred feet into the night sky at City Beach.  At least two of those events — the snow sculpting and the bonfire at the beach — are unlikely to make a comeback.

January thaws meant that snow had to be trucked in for sculpting, an expense that became unreasonable when the icy artwork lasted only a day or two in warmer temperatures.  And, over time, the practice of dumping a mountain of Christmas trees into the bed of Sand Creek and torching them made less sense environmentally and politically.

The parade, on the other hand, could tromp through town again if enough volunteers step forward to make it happen.

“Every year, it’s the same thing,” said Alveari.  “Should we do a parade?  Should we not?”

“The parade was such a tradition of Sandpoint Winter Carnival and everyone has so many positive memories of it that I can see it coming back,” Hyde said.  “We just need more help and more people focused on that.

“The kids who grew up with all of that now have kids of their own and they want to pass those memories along,” she added.  “We’ve lost a couple of those family traditions with the snow sculpting and the bonfire at the beach, but the parade?  That’s a possibility.  It was fun.  Cold and fun.”

For a complete list of Sandpoint Winter Carnival events visit: www.sandpointwintercarnival.com.