Willowites unite

WILLOW — Chainsaws, dog races and outhouses. Must be time for the Willow Winter Carnival.

Hundreds of bundled up Willowites and visitors gathered Saturday to kick off the 47th annual Willow Winter Carnival, ready to take part in a two-weekend spectacular celebrating an area rich in tradition and growth.

The often subdued Willow Community Center came alive with music and entertainment while keeping sports fans and spectators warm in the sunny, -10 degree weather.

Following the Kids Sled Dog Races and 3-mile cross-country ski races, all eyes turned to four oddly constructed, and obviously unusable, outhouses lining up in formation outside.

Trent, Wade, Keith, Ted and Tanner Schachle took their positions by a flimsy, Visqueen box holding a small sitting bench.

“The lighter the better,” Ted Schachle said before taking off around the parking lot.

The Outhouse Race requires entries to three pushers, one sitter, seven toilet paper tubes and a handmade outhouse. Pushing and pulling, racers run around a track, stopping to throw the toilet paper tubes into a trash can, then race across the finish line to win. Pushers from all four teams slipped, some falling, while the crowd cheered on.

Tanner Schachle, 10, held up his arms as his family pushed him across the finish line. Their prize: $50.

“It’ll go to the Tanner Schachle college fund,” Ted Schachle said.

Inside the community center, kids of all ages lined up to take numb their taste buds at the ice cream eating contest.

With hands behind their backs, faces dipped in and out of collapsing Styrofoam bowls as parents and friends helped out by holding back long hair and shouting support.

“Cold!” said Thomas Witte, 5. He smiled and licked his face after it was announced he won. Witte is the returning champion of the 2- to 5-year-old division of the contest.

Pat Madigan, secretary of the Willow Area Civic Organization (WACO), said planning this year’s carnival went fairly smoothly compared to previous years.

“We’re all usually exhausted at the end of the two weeks,” Madigan said. “Everybody who lives in Willow helps out in one way or another.”

King of Willow

Emil Stancec isn’t quite sure what being voted King of Willow means.

“They asked if I’d be willing to run,” the 79-year-old Stancec said. “I don’t know what I’ll be doing, but it’s an honor.”

At the 47th Willow Winter Carnival opening dinner Friday evening, Stancec and fellow Willow resident Donella Otter were crowned King and Queen of Willow.

Both are responsible for judging the ice cream eating and other contests throughout the two weekend festival.

On June 21, 1948, a 20-year-old Stancec arrived in Willow ready to bust his hump for the Alaska Railroad as a gandy dancer. His young curiosity reading about Alaska hunting adventures and avid fishing tales in magazines back in Ohio was enough to motivate him to start a new life.

The only access to Willow at the time was by air, train or a dirt road over Hatcher Pass. The town was small, fitted with a newly opened post office, a trading post and a string of tent cabins left from the Gold Rush and railroad construction. Attracted to desolation, Stancec stayed.

“I believe there was around 20 to 25 people who lived around Willow then,” Stancec said. “I loved it. The railroad had its quarters in an old Quonset hut that I stayed in.”

After six years working the rails, Stancec decided to become a trapper, spending his winters on trap lines and summers fishing in the number of area streams and lakes. Life was grand. Eventually, he went to work for the state parks department building new campgrounds from Kenai to Nome.

In 1957, Stancec, a bachelor who never married, decided he wanted to settle down and homestead in Willow, working off his land and making a go of it.

After the construction of the Anchorage-Fairbanks highway in the late 1950s, access in and out of Willow was available to a broader population, allowing the tiny town to blossom. Many buildings went up almost over night: the Willow Post Office, Willow Section House and Depot, Willow Trading Post and a newly constructed grocery store and service station all gave hope for growth in what had become the 49th state.

On Feb. 14, 1960, 49 residents of the community met at the Willow Depot to form an organization with goals to better the community and promote an active interest in the area. Members of this group called themselves the Willow Civic Organization. Later changing its name to Willow Area Civic Organization (WACO), a community structure was born.

First order of business: A new community center. Willowites, as residents were called, relied on WACO to take on the duties normally performed by a bustling city. With a new 40-foot by 60-foot Willow Community Center under construction, a hub for people to convene was established and ideas to start a “Willow-like” sports festival near Willow Lake became a reality.

History of the carnival

Ann Dixon, librarian at Willow Elementary School, compiled the 25th anniversary program for the Willow Winter Carnival.

Dixon and her husband have been attending the festival since 1982, when they moved to Willow. During this time, the old WACO Community Center was barely able to accommodate a growing community.

“Everyone smoked inside back then,” she said. “Combined with the fact that it was crowded and we had to use outhouses, so it was a different deal then.”

Researching the early days of Willow and the Winter Carnival, Dixon said she fell in love with the history of the town named after a tree.

“The first and early carnivals were different than they are today,” Dixon said. “There were no big snow machines to make the dog race trails back then. The trails were made with snowshoes, which is hard to fathom.”

While there was talk of a winter carnival in 1960, words weren’t turned into action until November 1961. With WACO’s new community building project underway, a fundraiser was conceived. First discussions centered on a dog race because of the abundance of teams around the area. Other suggestions were a Willow Queen contest, various homesteading events, a raffle, dance and concession stands.

Because WACO had no funds to support its proposed festival, local businessman Ray C. White offered to front the cash, as a loan, asking to be repaid if the carnival were successful. The WACO membership voted on a name, the State Winter Carnival, Willow, Alaska, and the first weekend of February was selected for the date of the annual event.

Pioneers of the carnival at this time were longtime Willow residents Art Hazel, Harold Nelson, Ray Johnson and Rosalie White.

“Rosalie White spearheaded the early days of the carnival,” Dixon said. “She wrote extensive booklets on the event, including interviews with many of the old-timers.”

Carnival programs are still a favorite display item at the carnival, as are the annual carnival pins.

Willowites clamored to pull together talents that first February in 1962.

Homesteading favorite pastimes were organized, such as snowshoe races, the Ladies’ Swede Saw Contest, wood chopping, two-man cross cut and numerous indoor events.

The main event, The Earl Norris Sled Dog Race, saw miles of canine teams assemble to make their way over 18 miles of Willow and Little Willow Creeks.

More than 500 people from all over Alaska helped celebrate the first Willow Winter Carnival in 1962.

“It was very successful, everyone had a good time,” Dixon said. “Money was raised to pay off the loan and it became an annual event.”

In 1972, the Pulka Race was added, a combination of cross-country skiing and dog mushing. Three years later, the first Sled Dog Freight Race and Canine Weight Pull were also added features to the carnival.

Motor-vehicle racing over Willow Lake came and went. In 1975, sports cars, motorcycles and snowmobiles eventually stopped their engines when overflow conditions on the lake made it impossible to have the event.

The Miss Willow contest, a favorite for local teens, was replaced by a King and Queen of Willow in 1985.

Dixon said nothing brings the community of Willow together more each winter than the carnival.

“It’s a tradition that brings people together in the wintertime,” she said. “It’s also a good time. Families come out and have a blast and it raises money for the community center. It’s definitely an homage to the homesteaders who aren’t really with us anymore. Things are changing a lot and newer people in the areas don’t have a feel for those days.”

Stancec said even though the carnival’s events have changed a bit over the years, Willow has remained pretty much the same.

“I was involved with most of the early carnivals,” Stancec said. “My brother and I made trails for the dog and the old snow machines races. It’s pretty well populated now, kind of a tourist and recreational place. I’m getting old enough where I’ve mellowed out, I didn’t like the growth at first, but I don’t mind it now.”

At the ice cream eating contest Saturday afternoon, Stancec stood over kids as they gobbled the cold vanilla dessert. He laughed as kids pulled back to hold their aching heads. Stancec said he’d like to spend the rest of the festivities watching the wood cutters and choppers.

“I’m mostly just a spectator,” he said. “The carnival hasn’t changed all that much. It still brings people together and they get the chance to visit with each other.”

The carnival continues today and next weekend. For a full schedule of those events, please visit the Frontiersman online at www.frontiersman.com.

Contact J.J. Harrier at valleylife@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.