Dartmouth celebrates the 85th anniversary of Winter Carnival this weekend, a time that traditionally includes winter sporting events, 50-foot sculptures, parties and lots of cold weather.
The real significance of Winter Carnival is evident in the anecdotes remembered from past Carnivals.
Winter Carnival began in 1910, the brainchild of Fred Harris '11, the same man who founded the Dartmouth Outing Club.
Harris said he believed there was more to winter than sitting indoors complaining about the weather and set about to organize sporting and social events through which Dartmouth students could enjoy the frigid weather to its fullest.
The first-ever Carnival weekend featured intercollegiate snow shoe and skiing races, a hockey game and a basketball game. All outdoor events took place during what was called "Outdoor Evening" on the golf course.
Harris was not able to attend the historic occasion because he had sprained his knee escaping a fire in South Fayerweathers dormitory, which burned to the ground shortly before the Carnival.
Less than a year later, Dartmouth men had organized a Winter Carnival Formal and turned what was to be a weekend celebrating the joys of winter into an excuse to invite women up to Hanover.
In a few short years Winter Carnival grew to be one of the campus' biggest attractions.
Trainloads of women arrived to participate in the activities and parties. Men met their girlfriends and blind dates at the station and brought them to campus where many stayed in fraternity houses vacated by the men for the weekend.
In 1952, Bob Daly '54 got seven dates for Winter Carnival weekend, all winners in the "Why I want to come to Winter Carnival with Bob Daly" essay contest. Unbeknownst to Daly, his friends had sent entry forms to Smith College, Wellesley College, Skidmore College and Vassar College.
Daly said he could not decide on the "most interesting and honest expression," so he chose the seven best.
The romance of the winter weekend proved too powerful for some, like F.W. Johnson '30, who married his date, Lydia Davies of Kentucky, during Saturday night's Carnival festivities
In 1932, 50 women traveling to Dartmouth for Winter Carnival missed the special "Winter Carnival Train" from Boston. The Feb. 6 issue of The Dartmouth reported that the brothers at Phi Chi fraternity had been hit the worst by this disaster, having "suffered the heaviest casualties, with 15 among the lost, strayed or missing."
Hot on the heels of the conception of the Winter Carnival Formal came the crowning of the Carnival Queen.
In 1923, Mary Warren became the first Carnival Queen. Most contestants for the honor were students at one of the Seven Sisters colleges.
In 1956, a description in The Dartmouth of the Carnival Queen stated "Her majesty is 18, five foot four, weighs about 110 pounds has light-brown hair, and hazel eyes. She hails from Manchester, N.H., and is a freshman at Bradford Junior College."
The unlucky man whose date was chosen Carnival Queen was apt not to see her for the remainder of the weekend.
In 1936, despite suspicions of rigged voting, Ann Hopkins, College President Ernest Hopkins's daughter, was crowned Winter Carnival Queen.
"As far as I'm concerned, it's the most successful Carnival I've ever seen," Ms. Hopkins told The Dartmouth proudly.
Two years before, Ann Hopkins had turned down her nomination to the regal position.
"I'm so young, mother might not like it," she told The Dartmouth.
In 1970, skydiver John Carlson parachuted from 3,500 feet to crown Skidmore junior Deborah Noyes Carnival Queen.
Noyes beat out Cynthia Hall, a playboy bunny from Wisconsin, who was featured "taking a frosty fun and games foray into the Ivy League," in the March 1970 centerfold.
The tradition of crowning a Carnival Queen fell by the wayside in later years. In 1975, only five women competed for the honor.
The Winter Carnival was not given a theme until 1935 when the theme was "Joten hiem dskarneval," a celebration of traditional Scandinavian carnivals.
Through the years the Carnival has seen various themes from this year's "Call of the Wild" to "The Rise and Fall of the Frozen Empire," in 1983; from 1972's "Winter Land of Oz" to 1962's "Northside Story".
The first snow sculpture, a large medieval castle, was built in 1925. In the following years, fraternities held their own sculpture competitions.
The Grinch, Ullur (the God of skiing), and a world record-breaking 47-foot snow man have been some of the snow sculptures over the years.
Carved out of two tons of orange juice concentrate, in 1950 Signma Nu's sculpture of a woman riding a dolphin was shipped 1,500 miles from Florida in a refrigerated train car. But the statue did not remain standing for long -- brothers spent much of the weekend chipping away at the statue to mix with gin or vodka.
In 1987 Dartmouth entered the record books, building a 47.5 foot snow man in the middle of the Green. Workers completed the sculpture five minutes before the opening ceremonies were to begin.
Since its humble beginnings Carnival weekend has seen both a rise and fall in popularity.
In 1952 a eight-mile long traffic jam blocked the roads into Hanover for the Carnival weekend. Over the three-day weekend 87 people were arrested for inebriation (and only six of them were Dartmouth students).
By the end of the weekend many Dartmouth students were reported to have adopted 1952's unofficial theme, "TGTG: Thank God They're Gone."
In 1939 "The Great Gatsby" author F. Scott Fitzgerald was at Dartmouth to make the movie "Winter Carnival" (based on the book he coauthored with Budd Schulberg '36).
But Fitzgerald spent so much time imbibing in the basements of Alpha Delta and Psi Upsilon fraternities that he was fired from the production of the movie in what has been described as a humiliating scene outside the Hanover Inn.
In some years, events from the outside world also influenced the College tradition.
The Carnival was canceled in 1943 because of World War II.
In 1991 students protested the Gulf War by throwing paint on the snow sculpture and painting a large, red peace sign on the ground in front of Dartmouth Hall.
In 1979, students painted the sculpture red, green and black to protest inadequate recruitment efforts and the lack of minority representation in the faculty and administration.
In 1933, College students postponed Winter Carnival to wait until the repeal of Prohibition.
But the students gave in too early and the Twentieth Amendment repealing Prohibition came just two weeks after Carnival was finally held.
