Steeped in tradition

Whitefish Winter Carnival still wows the crowd

Kings and queens attend Whitefish's social event of the season. Prime ministers are welcomed with trumpet revelry. Equally regal princes and princesses wave to the crowd of thousands.

Yes, the Whitefish Winter Carnival is a royal affair, steeped in the legend of King Ullr and his merry band of followers. It's been a grand tradition in the resort town for 47 years.

The carnival's beginning, though, was rather humble. Like many good ideas, it was conjured up one night over a few beers.

"True story," said Norm Kurtz, the carnival's first prime minister. "It was at the old Ptarmigan Room in the Chalet (on Big Mountain). Whit Smith and Dr. John Simons were talking about what they could do to make winter more interesting in Whitefish. They were good friends and drinking buddies. I hung my ear on the whole thing and when I went home I made a bunch of notes."

That was 1959. The following year, a group of organizers who became known as the Dirty Dozen "worked their tails off" to create the first Winter Carnival.

"It was fairly exhausting," remembered Jackie Adams of Kalispell, one of the Dirty Dozen. "And the truth is, it didn't amount to a whole lot" the first year.

Dave Hamilton, who chaired the first carnival with Kurtz, did his own critique of the inaugural event in the Whitefish Pilot.

"Was it worth it?" he asked. "From the standpoint of financial benefit, it wasn't." (The first carnival lost money.)

"From the number of visitors it brought, it wasn't. But from the standpoint of a great community celebration, it was a rousing success. And as an annual event, it will grow!"

Those turned out to be prophetic words.

Even with his go-getter attitude, Kurtz, who recently moved to Anacortes, Wash., wasn't sure the carnival would survive.

"I didn't think it would last. I said six years," he recalled. "I'm incredulous that it still goes. Of course they've had excellent organization over the years. Everyone always dived in and did it."

By 1972 the carnival brought between 15,000 to 20,000 people to the ski town for the parade, according to "Stump Town to Ski Town."

"It became almost the biggest event in Montana," Adams recalled. "If you were coming from Kalispell you had to start hours ahead of time and it took hours to get out of town…those days are gone."

Even so, the parade still draws a crowd of several thousand.

WHAT'S NOT well known is the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce's attempt to steal away the idea of a winter carnival, Kurtz said. Kalispell chamber officials offered to buy Kurtz's original detailed draft of a carnival schedule and events.

"I told them I had written it on [Whitefish] chamber time, so I took it to the Whitefish board and they said 'hell, no. If there's going to be a carnival, it will be in Whitefish,' " Kurtz said.

The 1960 carnival was "nothing like what it has become," Adams said.

It was done on a budget, with events such as broom hockey, skijoring down Central Avenue and a lavish queen's coronation dinner.

"Money was hard to come by," Adams said. "Nobody had a nickel one."

The $10 admission to the queen's dinner was considered top dollar, and many of Whitefish's then-blue collar crowd wondered who could afford such extravagance.

The idea of carnival royalty was part of the original scheme. Kurtz and Adams' husband Dick (the Adamses owned the Whitefish Pilot) wrote the Legend of Ullr, the mythical story on which the carnival was based.

The Winter Carnival revolves around the Norse god, Ullr, his Queen of the Snows and prime minister, who became disenchanted with their homeland, and "after centuries of brooding and searching the world for a place of rest," picked Whitefish.

The royal court's peace was short-lived as a fierce band of snowmen called Yetis attempted to drive them away through harassment and attempted kidnappings of the queen.

Yetis have been an important part of the carnival since the beginning. There were some uneasy moments the first year when the costumed abominable snowmen captured Whitefish Queen Jackie Hythecker and the St. Paul, Minn. Winter Carnival Queen Muriel Lux and whisked them away. They were returned in time for a royal dinner and torchlight parade on Big Mountain.

Yetis still turn up at nearly all carnival events and have frightened their share of small children. Only the Vikings, a group of warrior women in fur costumes and metal breast plates, can save carnival-goers by marking them with a "V" and a lipstick-smeared kiss on the cheek. Without the mark, the Yetis are free to carry off unsuspecting spectators.

By the second carnival, more costume groups appeared. First came the popular penguins, then the Klumsy Klowns, Great Northern goats, Raggedy Anns and Andys and others.

To incorporate winter into the carnival as much as possible, city crews hauled in snow to Central Avenue for the parade, which was confined to sleighs the first couple of years, Kurtz said.

"We had real torches back then. We lined the streets with kids holding torches that had been dipped in kerosene," Kurtz said.

Children holding blazing torches may seem like a liability nightmare these days, but it was all in good fun back then. So was skijoring, a popular event that was eventually moved for fear the horses or skiers would run into parking meters along the street.

"I still hold the record for the shortest jump: 12 feet," Kurtz boasted.

THIS YEAR, organizers broke with tradition and staged an elaborate indoor king and queen coronation with a two-act skit that featured some of the oldest King Ullr title-holders.

"It's important to keep this history alive," said Howard Austin, who reigned as King Ullr XLV two years ago. "We wanted to go back to some of the pomp and circumstance of the past."

Winogene McIntyre, a former "chamber maid," (chamber maids are the wives of the kings) wrote the skit that portrayed the old kings as patients in King Ullr's Infirmary. Austin's wife, Mary, helped complete the production with a celebratory finale that ended with the crowing of King Ullr XLVII, Joe Basirico.

Ted Lund, the 1963 King Ullr IV, stole the show, pretending to read a Playboy magazine as the chamber maids doted on him. Later he brought down the crowd when he sang "The Whitefish Song," flanked by his favorite penguin characters.

Whitefish celebrates next weekend with a Mardi Gras theme, in honor of New Orleans and its Hurricane Katrina victims.

Forty-seven years later, the spirit of that first Whitefish Winter Carnival seems incredibly well-preserved.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com