Creator of area festivals packs up her creativity

It didn’t look like Merry Braham’s office anymore last Friday afternoon as she finished packing up 34 years of memories accumulated in her years as a volunteer and then as paid staff for the Chugiak-Eagle River Chamber of Commerce.

Once a room with walls decorated with event posters, snarky life sayings and note cards from folks she has interacted with, the office being vacated by the chamber’s longtime special events coordinator seemed a bit bare and devoid of evidence of the work she’s completed as one of the founders of Eagle River’s premiere event – the Bear Paw Festival in July – and the uncrowned queen of December’s Merry Merchant Munch.

“Yes,” she said as she looked around after this reporter noted the change in the office’s appearance. “But all good things must come to an end and it is time for a new adventure for me.”

Indeed.

Braham is headed south.

Nope, not to the Lower 48. Come on, now. She may have been an import to Alaska several decades ago but pretty much her entire family – her husband, Mitch, her children and the grandchildren, the nieces, nephews and the grandnieces and grandnephews are all still here on the Last Frontier. Her extended family – the friends and endless list of acquaintances – are all here in Alaska as well.

Nope, Braham is just headed to Juneau and just for the 2018 legislative session to work for the first few months as the eyes and ears and keeper of the schedule for Eagle River’s Rep. Dan Saddler.

It’s partly a new chapter in her life and partly a continuation of the saga she’s lived for decades now.

She’s seen the boom and bust of the state’s economy several times and while she is optimistic that the current economic issues will come around to the state’s plus side, Braham is concerned for what kind of future her family – and other families – will have in Alaska.

“Alaska is such a wonderful place to raise a family,” Braham said. “But the economic issues currently going on need to be fixed so that we can ensure our children and their children have the same level of opportunities that we did.”

Perhaps in some small part as she helps in Saddler’s legislative office, her work can be part of the nudge toward financial solutions for the state. She certainly hopes that state legislators will find a way to work together instead of remaining divided along political party lines.

In 1985, Braham and Bev Felix and Lynne Berkwist – each active members of the Eagle River community running businesses and raising young children – decided the burgeoning little town ought to have its own festival.

“Everyone else had something that was theirs; everyone else had some sort of festival or event for their town,” Braham recalled. “We wanted one too.”

The idea was to create northern version of a street arts and crafts festival from Mercer Island in Washington, Braham said.

The first Bear Paw Festival featured the homespun goodness of local artisans, bakers and crafters and the cute and quirky creations of the area’s kids from cookies to decorated rocks.

And a parade.

Not quite the size of the current parade of which entries are made months in advance to secure a spot in the event. But a terrific start featuring much of what is contained in recent years.

“We called everybody we could think of: the fire department, we got garbage trucks in the parade, anybody with a truck,” Braham said with a laugh. “And we had this little parade and that is how it all started.”

Since then, the Bear Paw Festival has grown in to one of Southcentral Alaska’s premiere summer events filling the middle week of July with crazy contests and merriment.

The Slippery Salmon Olympics – an event that has garnered national media coverage and drawn notable politicians and entertainers to participate – is of Braham’s creation.

She’d heard of another SSO in Canada’s British Columbia that was more of an alcohol drinking game. But she liked the name and so she contacted the event’s sponsors to make sure she could borrow the name.

And then she thought about what would make Bear Paw’s SSO memorable.

Oh, how about if contenders in the event have to carry a salmon – one sizable enough that a fisherman would not have to lie about its length and weight – in one hand while carrying a tray with a soft drink poured in a cup sitting on a tray with its empty soda can while being timed through an obstacle course?

Sure, that ought to work.

“We needed something that would entertain the crowd and the folks doing it,” she said.

Through the years, the SSO had adapted. Chamber officials eliminated the part of the obstacle course in which participants had to run through tires on the ground in the same manner pro football players do at training camp.

“Too many injuries. Insurance made us change that,” Braham remembers.

Yet, the event has developed in to one that festival goers schedule their day around. You’ve got to show up early to claim an unobstructed viewing spot. And the event has become a mainstay fundraiser for area local needs that otherwise go without monies.

Susie Gorski, former long-time executive director of the chamber now retired and travelling with husband, Jim, fondly recalls the years she and Braham were the dynamic duo partnering together to make Bear Paw happen and facilitate the chamber’s other year-round activities including its membership luncheons twice a month.

“Merry is one of the most creative people I have ever had the privilege of knowing. Her ideas were always fun and full of life,” Gorski said via Facebook private messenger. “Our community is stronger and richer as she helped us to mature to a well-connected and supportive community.”

As she looked over the years of Bear Paw posters still in her possession as she finished packing up last week, Braham noted the different types of paper used and the changes in style.

“Things change,” she said with a smile. “I will still be around.”

Author’s Note: Since 1999 when my family landed here in the local area and I’ve had the honor of writing about the Chugiak-Eagle River area, Merry Braham has been someone that shared her energy and knowledge with me and therefore also the readers of articles written. She always had an idea. As she noted in her final email message to chamber members, “thanks for all the fish.” Here’s hoping your freezer always is full of salmon by summer’s end. Best to you, Merry.