Frat parties and debauchery epitomize Winter Carnival for much of the Dartmouth community, but the event's earliest incarnations were spent mainly on the ski slopes and toboggan runs north of campus, not in the dance parties and fraternities of Webster Avenue. The Dartmouth Outing Club was the key instigator of these activities then and hopes to highlight them once again on the group's 100th birthday.
Andrew Palmer '10, president of the DOC, said he hopes that this Winter Carnival weekend will see a resurgence of interest in outdoor activities.
"The focus on outdoor sports has diminished," Palmer said. "What people don't really know is that the DOC invented Winter Carnival in 1911... DOC was the beginning, and over the years it has lessened. We want to bring Carnival back outside."
The DOC traces its roots to Fred Harris, Class of 1911, who formed the Club in 1909 with the intention of "[stimulating] interest in out-of-doors winter sports."
The first Winter Meet, which Harris organized in 1910 as a strictly athletic event for skiers, was almost called off after a fire ravaged South Fayerweather hall the night before. Harris, himself a resident of the dormitory, sprained his knee after jumping from a window to escape the blaze. No one was killed in the fire, and Winter Meet was so successful that Harris proposed an even larger Carnival the following year.
Born in Vermont, Harris learned to ski as a teenager in Brattleboro, where he first got what he described as "skeeing on the brain."
The sport was still in its infancy, according to an article by Carl Shumway, Class of 1913, published in Sportsman magazine in 1937, when Harris began trekking with fellow club members into the New Hampshire wilderness. While cross-country skiing from Hanover to Mt. Moosilauke in 1911, few people Harris encountered had ever seen or heard of skis, according to the New England Ski Museum web site.
Harris made skiing one of the most popular winter sports in New England, earning him the title "Dartmouth's Winter Prophet" from the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine and "The Man Who Put America on Skis" by Sportsman magazine. Through his work with the skiing branch of the DOC and his construction of the Harris Hill ski jump in Brattleboro, Vt., Harris was able to bring national attention to skiing, and ski jumping in particular.
The sport became so popular at Dartmouth that even the government sought the DOC's help in promoting winter sports. In 1917, William Hall of the Forest Service contacted the College on behalf of the Department of Agriculture to ask if someone could film Winter Carnival events, because the department was "desirous of encouraging winter sports in the White Mountains and [thought] that moving pictures of the contests at Hanover would be very useful in this direction."
Harris also edited and contributed to the book "Dartmouth Out O'Doors," which was the first American book to give ski instructions, according to Shumway's article. Along with skiing, this athletic Renaissance man won 26 Vermont state championships in tennis and served as a naval aviator in World War I.
Harris remained a fixture at Winter Carnival until his death in 1961, just before his 50th class reunion, according to an article in Alumni Magazine.
Skiing's popularity also benefited Dartmouth's academic reputation. In 1920, Harris penned an article for National Geographic magazine titled "Skiing over the New Hampshire Hills." Applicants increased from 825 to 2,625 over the next admissions cycle, forcing the College to begin selective admissions for the first time in its history. The DOC credits Harris's article, which was read in over two million homes, as the reason for this drastic increase.
The College's image as a winter sports school continued through the mid-1920s, when 73 percent of the student body belonged to the DOC, according to the group's web site. The ski team at Dartmouth became "the unquestioned champion for
most of the 1930s," with Dartmouth skiers like David Bradley '38 and Eddie "the Snapper" Wells '39 becoming national ski heroes. Coach Walter Prager led the team to victory during the late 1930s and early 1940s before becoming the head ski instructor for the famous 10th Mountain Division Ski Troops during World War II.
The war nearly put an end to both Winter Carnival and the DOC, according to
"Reaching that Peak," David Hooke's history of the DOC. The Carnival was cancelled nine days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and, for the remainder of the war, the DOC held an "Annual Dartmouth Winter Sports Meet" that lacked the dances, sculptures, and grandeur of former celebrations.
The DOC was also struggling, according to the group's web site. With a reduced budget and no general manager, the club barely stayed alive. Because many students were leaving campus to fight in the war, the DOC was often without strong and consistent leadership. In 1945, after the war was over, the DOC was finally able to reinstate Winter Carnival. Continued rationing made the event smaller than it had been before the war, but the return of the snow sculpture in the middle of the Green brought back the spirit of Winter Carnival.
Involvement in the DOC has decreased since those storied days, according to Palmer, in part because of a misconception among students about who can participate in outdoor events.
"We're really trying hard to come up with events that are as inclusive as possible," Palmer said. "We want to use the centennial to show that the DOC isn't an exclusive club. At Winter Carnival we will show how open the DOC is to campus."
The DOC will be staging many outdoor activities for beginners throughout the weekend in an attempt to attract new members and introduce students to winter sports, Palmer said.
This year's original snow sculpture design, a recreation of Moosilauke Ravine Lodge, was to incorporate elements of winter sports.
Following the original sculpture's collapse, the DOC helped organize rebuilding efforts, eventually creating a depiction of two mountains, meant to symbolize the importance of the outdoors at the Carnival.
The DOC will also offer cross-country skiing, skating and snow shoeing lessons. Even the Ledyard Canoe Club will be taking part in the outdoor spirit: In lieu of a lake to paddle on, students will ride kayaks down snowy embankments on the golf course, an activity Palmer termed "snowyaking."
Winter Carnival is only one part of the DOC's plan to make the club more inclusive, Palmer said. Last week, the club organized its annual "Winter Weekend," where students could sign up for different training courses.
According to Palmer, these activities are ideal for those who seek a medium level of involvement in outdoor activities. The weekend after Carnival is Grant Weekend, when students trek into the second College grant. DOC leaders hope that this weekend will attract some of the most involved members and students who want to fully immerse themselves in winter activities.
The Winter Carnival will be the most important weekend, however, for attracting new members and beginners to the DOC, Palmer said.
"We're hoping that Carnival will be our kickoff event for the centennial," Palmer said. "We hope it gets all of campus talking about the DOC."
Centennial Chair Max Friedman '10 agrees that this Carnival will be a time for reminding the student body of the importance of the DOC.
"We hope Winter Carnival can bring campus together like Homecoming does," Friedman said. "The whole point of the centennial is to celebrate a club that has been an important part of Dartmouth. This is about Dartmouth coming together and all of us enjoying this wonderful atmosphere here."
