...and Old McDonald had an Eskimo?

This weekend I stuck around here and went to all the events in the Fairbanks area. For some reason they all seem to be on the same weekend which works out well for me, I suppose.
This Friday I spent the better portion of the day and night at the World Eskimo Indian Olympics or WEIO as they called it. Whenever they would say "W.E.I.O." I would always get the "Old McDonald" song in my head. :)
Anyway, they had a bunch of strange events that apparently their ancestors had been playing or doing some form of for generations. The most interesting had to be the "Ear pull". They would put a piece of simulated sinew in a loop around around each persons ear and pull their heads back trying to pull the loop off the other persons ear. They would do rounds as best out of three. They would go right ear to right ear, then left to left and then, if they needed a tie breaker, they would go winning ear to winning ear. They had brackets that worked down to the winner. By the last few rounds I cannot imagine how badly their ears must have been burning! Some got cuts on the back of their ears and almost all of them were icing their ears.
Other events included "The 4-Man carry", "Two foot high kick", "One foot high kick" (not pictured), "Women's Blanket toss", "Seal Skinning", "Drop the Bomb",  and the "Knuckle hop (not pictured)."

 

 

 

On Saturday, there was a festival downtown that celebrated the Gold Rush call "Golden Days."
On Sunday, as a part of this celebration the people of Fairbanks got to show off their ingenuity in the "Red Green Regatta". I have no idea how it got that name, but it has been a Fairbanks tradition for 17 years to make any kind of floating structure with at least one roll of duct tape used in its construction, and see if you can make it down the Chena river a couple of miles without sinking.
Some people were more creative then others, but it was so funny to watch! This year there was a big hazard right at the first bridge they had to go under, a huge log. A few of the "boats" didn't even make it past this first obstacle.

 

 

 

 

 Besides not sinking, the other object was to get the other floaters and the onlookers as wet as possible.

(Wow, sorry that video is so small and poor quality. I took all the Red Green Regatta pics with my phone since I forgot my camera memory chip. I won't let that happen again.)