Thanks to the beauty of the trimester system, Dartmouth's calendar calls for three big festival weekends per year. (Apologies to Tubestock, the recently-defunct fourth celebration: you will be sorely missed.) While many colleges on a traditional semester hold their major weekends in the fall and spring, several nearby schools embrace the bone-chilling temperatures of a New England winter with their own annual incarnations of a winter carnival.
This year, Bates College held its 88th annual winter carnival during the last week of January. The theme for their celebration this year, "Bobcat the Builder," was inspired by construction projects on campus. Their carnival events include a karaoke night, concerts, and a "Rock 'N Skate" night, during which students ice skate with glow sticks while listening to a live deejay. The Bates Outing Club also normally hosts a series of events, although many of the scheduled activities were postponed this year due to warmer-than-expected temperatures. Bates's annual puddle jump in Lake Andrew was pushed back several days this year because the ice on the campus's lake was too thin. Other outdoor events include toboggan pulls and a three-legged toboggan race.
While Dartmouth's Carnival features a variety of social, recreational, and entertainment events, Bates' version of the festival focuses primarily on outdoor events and draws participation from a smaller segment of students.
"It's more of a hippy event, for the people who are more nature- and outdoors-inclined," said Ned Welbourn, a Bates sophomore.
"It's not a huge campuswide thing."
Similar to Dartmouth's Carnival, Bates' festival includes a dogsled race and icy water dive. Like the Polar Bear Swim, the Bates puddle jump brings students to the school's pond to jump into the frigid water.
"It's something that everyone talks about doing once during their Bates experience," he said.
Williams College -- which held its first winter carnival in 1915 -- begins its annual celebration on the third weekend of February. As part of its festivities, the college hosts skiers from other New England schools, including Dartmouth. Organized by the Williams Outing Club -- which was originally modeled after the Dartmouth Outing Club -- the festivities include a sculpture competition, ski races and an annual hockey game.
Known as "Winter Carnival" throughout most of the 1900s, Colgate renamed its annual winter celebration "Winterfest" in the 1990s. In 2005, Winterfest organizers tried to breathe new life back into the celebration at Colgate to reinvigorate the decades-old tradition. Winterfest planners spread out events over the course of a week, rather than loading them into the span of only one day. This year, Winterfest will begin on Feb. 17.
At Carnegie Mellon this year's winter gala -- which occurred during the weekend of Jan. 26 -- bore the theme "Cruise Ship." Lasting from 9 p.m. until 1 a.m. the following morning, the festivities included various rooms of games and activities in the university's campus center and several thousand dollars worth of prizes given away to students during the night.
At the University of Maine, winter carnival -- which falls this year at the same time as the College's -- is a weeklong celebration. Many of Maine's planned activities are similar to Dartmouth's winter carnival staples. This Wednesday, for instance, students will compete in a snow sculpture contest. The school also features a polar bear swim, which is scheduled for Feb. 10. On Friday night, the campus's Field House will host a festival from 8 p.m. until midnight with activities such as a pedestal joust, velcro jumping, caricaturists, a stilt walker and frisbee spin-art.
