July 13, 2002
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This weekend it’s MooseDrop in Talkeetna!
Jim Kloss of Radio Free Talkeetna alerted me to this, from the Times of London:
READERS at a loose end this weekend might want to consider popping over to the Arctic Circle for a unique traditional event. In Talkeetna, Alaska, it is the annual Moose Droppings Festival, the highlight of which is the launch of 750 numbered moose pats from 1,000ft in the air. Whoever picks the dropping that falls closest to an “X” marked on the ground below wins $1,000.
“The brown pellets are also shellacked and sold as novelty items, from earrings to Christmas tree ornaments,” says the Talkeetna tourist website. “They’re just the thing for folks who insist on organic products.”
I think the Times has a good reputation, but that little blurb has some glaring inaccuracies. Geography, for one. The Circle is ‘way up north from here. We are at latitude 62°N. And unless “pat” is a generic Brit term for feces, they’ve entirely missed the essence of moose droppings.
These are not cow patties or buffalo chips, but MOOSE NUGGETS, much like giant rabbit droppings.
The Talkeetna Moose Dropping Festival has grown from a lighthearted local excuse to party to an international spectacle since some imbecile a few years ago publicly decried the inhumane dropping of moose from aircraft. Up ’til then we had the Nugget Toss, a game where you could win prizes by throwing those decidedly UNaerodynamic pellets at a target. Now they’ve added the dropping drop.
Update:
I left a link to this blog in the writer’s email, and received this somewhat defensive reply:
Dear Kathy,
I’m sorry you thought my piece was full of glaring inaccuracies. I suppose pellets would be a more suitable word than pats, but I was only using the term colloquially rather than in a strict coprological sense. As for the Arctic Circle, Talkeetna is rather closer to it than where most of my readers live. If they were popping over for your moose droppings festival, then I’m sure they’d take the opportunity of visiting the Arctic Circle at the same time.
All the best,
Jack Malvern
Yeah, right, Jack.
Comments (10)
Heh heh! What we will do for fun in Alaska!
Last week while fishing I saw a tourist get out of a drift boat to pee. When he came back he had a handfull of moose nuggets wanting to know what they were. I heard his guild say they were moose seeds.
Moose nuggets, eh? LOL. Loved the pics in the blog before this one. Awesome.
Any excuse for a festival….
thanks for dropping by my page! Welcome, welcome and all that jazz
Check you later and watch out for moose droppings. Not much of a problem on Long Island. But man do we get some big dogs ^_^
~DF
EWWWWW……..although I think that’s not quite as distasteful as the um…..errrr….keychains and other paraphrenilia created from the various lovelies found in the Halifax Harbour and hawked during Busker festivals et all…..um…..err…..you can use your imagination for that one! I reminisce blissfully about sewage treatment facilities in the prairies that are my home…
Why not? I like this reason for celebration.
Ah. So that’s your proof. Interesting……..
No, I will NOT clean your room! *lol*
Mine is troublesome enough to just KEEP clean!
Wait…wait. ::reads line again:: Earrings? What the…? Holy….! Them’s some bigazz earrings!!!
A party is party. Interesting.
Way Cool!! Only…*giggle* Moose are a myth. Any moose you see are either animatronics or elk made up to look like these amazing mythical creatures…..ok, so that’s the spiel I give people. I’ve been to every state that claims to have moose, and I only saw one- in Alaska- and she did everything I asked of her, including posing…and this was in the wild. So either I can talk to the moosies, or they are remote controlled….LOL…*wink*I’ve almost got myself and others convinced it’s true…LOL Hope your festival is/was a real fun time! Pax~ Z