Legends And Tales Of The Mountain Kingdom: The Winter Carnival

Beer garden. Rail jam. Borscht and a bun at the Legion. Barbequed burgers in front of the Eagles. Ski races. Partying and ice sculptures. These are just some of the things that go on during Rossland’s annual Winter Carnival.

Such festivities are so necessary in cold, snowy climates. Seven winters in Ottawa would have been far less tolerable for me if I didn’t have Winterlude events to go to to break up the monotony of the season, and I’m sure residents of Quebec City would have a far harder time with their winters if they didn’t have Bonhomme and the Quebec Winter Carnival to look forward to.

Back in Rossland’s early days, when the town was just a mucky mining camp out in the boondocks, the cabin fever and isolation must have been, I imagine, rather intense. But luckily, there were some pro-active folks around who made it their duty to inject a little bit of fun and festivity into the community at the time of year when I can only assume a lot of people were wondering what on earth they were doing in this snowy backwater to begin with, and that the potential gold riches had better be worth hanging out and suffering through such frigid conditions with few creature comforts.

Enter the saviour of winter doldrums, the curer of cabin fever, Mr. Olaus Suck-it-Up-Because-if-you-Think-This-is Bad-you-Should-see-Norway-at-This-Time-of-Year Jeldness.

Actually, I don’t know his middle name, but he was born Olaus Gjeldnes in 1856 in the town of Stangvik, Norway, which is located on a fjord about 300km northwest of Oslo. It’s latitude is just over one degree south of Iqaluit’s, so you can imagine how cold, harsh, and dark the winters would be there. Yet young Olaus seemed to embrace the season, involving himself in winter sports such as skiing and ski jumping.

As a 15 year old, he was hailed as Norway’s ski jump champion, and indeed world champion, with a distance of 92 feet. At the age of 16, he took ship for North America, following two of his brothers, and wound up in Missouri via New York and Michigan. From there he made the rounds of various mining camps, wending his way westward to Colorado, gaining valuable mining experience as he went. In 1882, he made a trip back to Norway to set up a silver mine in his homeland’s north, followed by a brief stint in mining school in the States, before ending up in Rossland in 1894 after setting up mining operations in various locales including Montana, Idaho, and Washington State.

A well-known mining prospector around town, Olaus was better known for his passion about the outdoors and the sport of skiing, and this was to be his legacy in Rossland long after the mines all closed down.

His exploits on local hills were the talk of the town and eventually became legendary. In a letter to a friend, he said this:

I look forward to the pleasure of skiing over cliff and crag and down steep mountain sides with childish glee. During the few moments I occupy in running the distance I am a boy again, my many disappointments and struggles in life is [sic] forgotten as I pass with more than Nancy Hawk swiftness over distances sometimes down ugly gulches then bouncing over cliffs sailing 40, 50 & 60 feet in the air which however never checks the progress and while the run lasts the pleasure to me is sublime.

Olaus is famous for a few things. One is skiing down Red (and he was the first to do so) with one short ski and one long ski on, the long ski being about 10 feet in length. Legend has it that he also hosted a tea party up on the top of Red Mountain one wintry night, but after examining all the evidence available and applying some common sense, local historian Ron Shearer, who has a delightful series of essays on Rossland’s history and one on Jeldness in particular, writes that the Tea Party, “has an aura of improbability.

To transport the food, drink, cooking implements and skis for 25 people to the top of the mountain Jeldness would have required considerable assistance. The result must have been a well-defined path through the snow up the mountain side. The guests would not have had to struggle through deep snow unless they so chose.

More importantly, it seems unlikely that even Jeldness would have been so irresponsible as to dispatch his inebriated friends down a mountainside that he considered steep for even expert skiers, replete with brush, trees and mine workings, at dusk (or more likely in the dark; Whittaker [another historian] suggests that the party occurred in the evening).

If Jeldness had just introduced skiing to Rossland it seems unlikely that many of the party had yet become accomplished skiers. Some were probably novices if they skied at all. Did the famous tea party happen?”

Whether or not he was entirely responsible for the idea of the Winter Carnival, Jeldness was certainly one of the big forces behind the event, which had its inauguration in mid-February 1898. He sat on the carnival’s committee and was in charge of the skiing events. There were two, initially. One was a downhill event involving a race down Red Mountain to a finish line in downtown.

Olaus invited some of his skiing friends from the States to participate, and two came. Starting at the top of the mountain, which was uncleared of brush, trees, and other obstacles, the racers skied down navigating their own routes back to town, but the weather had been unfavourable up to the night before the race and the mountain was treacherous. Olaus won the race and his brother came in second, but one skier did not finish because his skis broke. Two other skiers, the ones from the States, opted not to race because of the conditions, so the event didn’t get off to a very auspicious start. The next day, the ski jumping even was held on Spokane Street but not much is known about it.

There were also other activities as part of the Carnival: at the indoor skating rink, called the Ice Palace and located at Washington and Second Avenue, there was a masquerade ball, curling, hockey games, a snowshoeing event, and skating races. The Ice Palace collapsed after a heavy snowfall not long after the Carnival, and Olaus was a key mover and shaker in the rebuilding.

The next Winter Carnival was held in January 1899, and, again, it involved an epic ski race down Red Mountain, and, again, Olaus won it. He also won the ski jump again, with a length of 40 feet. That’s less than half of what he did in Norway at the age of 15, but I assume it was the spirit of the competition that motivated Jeldness, not the prospect of a record-making jump.

In 1900, Olaus had moved to Spokane, but he still returned to Rossland for that year’s Winter Carnival, predictably winning the downhill ski event and the ski jumping event. Winning these events made him “Canadian champion” of the sports. This would have made Olaus the first Canadian champion of skiing and ski jumping, This is where the trophies come in.

In 1898, when the first Winter Carnival association was formed, two trophies were donated. The downhill (then called “ski running”) trophy was donated by Hon. C.H. Mackintosh and the ski jumping trophy by the War Eagle Consolidated Mining & Development Co. In a letter written by Olaus in 1934, addressed to a Mr. Cameron in Trail, detailing some of the facts around the trophies, Jeldness said, “I wish to explain how these trophies became emblematic of the championship of Canada:...the ski sport championship had not yet been established in Canada and therefore it originated in Rossland, in 1898. Among those who concurred with this opinion...were such well-known sportmen and athletes as A.B. Mackinzie (sic) and J.S.C. Fraser, both authorities in Canadian sport.”

As three-time winner and Canadian champion, the trophies became Olaus’s personal property, but as a promoter of the sports, he donated a new trophy to the Winter Carnival association, a cup to be presented to the three-time winner of the ski-jumping event.

This eventually went to a guy named Torgal Noren, who--though he won the title three times--didn’t win it three times in a row. This caused a bit of controversy about whether or not Noren should take the cup, but Olaus, as the donator, was given the final decision, and the cup did eventually go to Noren. To replace that, Olaus donated a third trophy to the Carnival’s association. This was in 1907. The association decided to pass a resolution stating that no winner of it could have absolute possession of it, but only keep it for one year. The winner did get an accompanying gold medal, however, that he could keep permanently.

The Winter Carnival went through quite an evolution between the year of its inception and the year of its eventual demise in 1917. Shearer’s essay “Mid-winter Mardi Gras: Rossland’s Original Winter Carnival”, available in PDF form on the Spirit of Red site, gives a ton of excellent details about the carnival over its early years.

While the 1898 carnival was modest, a lot of energy was put into promoting the carnival to not only locals, but people from out of town as well. The next year, 1899, saw a train load of merry-makers from Spokane arrive in town, complete with their mayor, and were entertained on board by Rossland’s civic band, who then led an impromptu parade through town with the new arrivees, who had been greeted at the train station by Rossland’s mayor and a large reception committee.  Over the first few years, advertising and promotion increased, and delegates from Rossland even went to places like Spokane to personally invite some of the people of that city who had ties to the town.

The Winter Carnival became a time of great commerce for the Mountain Kingdom. The mayor declared the Friday of the carnival to be a civic holiday in 1899, and one of the local newspapers encouraged parents to keep their children home from school that day so kids and the school staff could enjoy the goings-on. For the 1906 carnival, the Friday was officially declared a school holiday. With special excursion trains coming from Spokane and other parts of the Kootenays, Rossland was the place to be during carnival time.

Furthermore, on a social level, certain non-sporting activities gave Rosslanders and their neighbours a chance to hob nob with business leaders and other important people. In 1898, the carnival was kicked off with an invitation-only ball, and at the end of the weekend, there was a gigantic ice masquerade for everyone to participate in. But the invitation-only ball on the carnival’s opening night caused some hard feelings around town, and the next year the masquerade took its place, with an elegant ball happening later on in the carnival. The masquerade would become one of the most popular social events in Rossland’s history, drawing hundreds of participants and spectators, and soon enough there were similar masquerades at other times of the year besides Winter Carnival.

Events at the Winter Carnival came and went, often depending on costs and revenues. Over the years, hockey became the premier event because it drew lots of people and lots of revenue. In 1900, horse races and dog sleigh races were on the list of events, and boxing became a big unofficial carnival event. Also in 1900, a famous skater came to Rossland to perform; J.K. McCollough was touted “champion skater of the world” in both speed skating (done inside the arena) and “fancy skating”, AKA figure skating. Someone even brought in tug-o-war in 1904.

But the affluence of Rossland was directly tied into the success of the carnival, and the Winter Carnival’s heydays were definitely in the years of Rossland’s mining boom. In 1902, the carnival almost didn’t happen, most likely because it occurred that year on the heels of the mining strike that ended in January. There was a short period of renewed energy, but in 1910-1911, Shearer says, “the carnival again began to flag. Revenues appear to have been stagnant while expenses rose. This time, instead of attempting to introduce something new that would bring about another revitalization, the committee began trim the program, dropping events that were expensive and generated little or no revenue.”

And by 1917, Rossland’s Winter Carnival was gone, and nothing would replace it until after WWII, when there was another boom in town.

Nowadays, the Rossland’s carnival is a very popular event, and it currently incorporates Blizzard Fest, a music festival, and lasts for over a week. The main attraction is now the infamous bobsled race down Spokane Street, which once saw Canadian comedian and TV host Rick Mercer participate. But it’s important to know that the Winter Carnival is completely volunteer-run and it takes countless hours for the committee and the volunteers to ready and run the entire carnival.

The city helps out by making some of the venues, like the Rail Jam venue on Queen Street and the bobsleigh run on Spokane Street, but the carnival itself thrives and survives thanks to those dedicated volunteers. We owe them a big thank you for giving Rosslanders something to look forward to over the winter!

Sources:

I would like to gratefully acknowledge Ron Shearer for allowing me to use his essays as a source for this piece. The essays are available in PDF on the Spirit of Red site.

Also:

http://www.skimuseum.ca/biodata.php?lang=en&id=60

http://www.getawaybc.com/kootenay-rockies/trail/olaus-jeldness-the-man-who-created-the-carnival/