To the editor:
Whatever happened to the “Caribou Winter Carnival?
For many years Caribou hosted an activity that many people enjoyed called the “Caribou Winter Carnival.” Activities were held for 10 days, later cut down to a week. In checking with the Chamber of Commerce, this year’s Winter Carnival was only scheduled for three days and only had five activities listed. Whatever has happened to the Caribou Winter Carnival Queen contest when we had several young ladies vying for the title of “Caribou Winter Carnival Queen”?
No Queens’ Tea when the judges would mingle with the queen contestants.
No Winter Carnival Ball where the Queen and her court would attend the ball.
No Sportsman’s Banquet where we would serve a delicacy of caribou meat, moose meat or even rattlesnake meat and some old gentlemen would spin yarns about hunting and fishing.
No Sportsman’s Show with wild animals, demonstrations of archery and fishing and other displays.
No ski race from Bangor to Caribou or River de Loup to Caribou or even from Stockholm.
No ski jumping like back when Richard White, Doug Collins or Harold Bishop would jump from a ski jump on North Main Street and later on at the Limestone Road.
No more ice racing with Harold Albair and others at our Caribou skating rink.
No figure skating exhibitions, such as was being done by Bernard St. Peter, Dana Boone and Laila Bell.
No hundred-yard dash or snowshoe races that we used to have at Teague Park.
No ice castle in the square where the men would cut ice from Collins Pond and build an ice castle.
No snow sculpturing on people’s lawns, school grounds or on the library lawn.
No outhouse race when a group of younger men would get together and build their own outhouse to race.
No more big sleds giving people rides from the downtown to the ski jumps or Teague Park.
No more displays of equipment, that many of us had used all of our lives and many people didn’t know what they looked like, such as a log hauler.
No more little train on the side of the street that people could view.
Is it possible that we could revise the Caribou Winter Carnival, bringing back tradition and go forward with a week-long activity that we could all enjoy?
I would like to challenge some of our younger citizens in the age brackets of, say 20 to 40 or even 50 years of age, to go forward with the torch. We old “geezers” of 80 years of age and older just “can’t cut the mustard anymore.”
If so, let’s get started this year preparing for a good old Caribou Winter Carnival that we all could enjoy. You can call me most anytime if you are interested in discussing a good old traditional Winter Carnival as we used to know it; my number is 498-6562.
Caribou
