Elena Haines twirls for spectators at this year's incarnation of the Madame Fifi Fashion show on second floor of the Elk's Lodge Saturday Evening. The event featured native and camoflage categories.
Stella Buness, 3, pans for gold with a little help from dad Jordan Buness at a gold panning exhibition Saturday afternoon in the Nolan Center lobby.
Saturday morning offered clear cold weather to runners in the Howdy Doody Outhouse 10k Fun Run 9 a.m. at City Park.
Scott McAuliffe demonstrates equipment used to set traps during a gold panning and trapping expedition Saturday afternoon in the Nolan Center lobby.
Local tykes bounced in a jumping castle, took home about 100 goldfish, panned for simulated gold, took in the finer points of fur trapping, and raced beds along a one-block stretch of Front Street this weekend.
Despite frigid temperatures and a biting wind, the annual Tent City Days festival drew crowds to participate in many (mostly indoor) events. The festival commemorates Wrangell's role in gold rushes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
About 200 children showed up to the youth carnival at the Stikine Native Organizations Building Saturday morning. Funds raised during the event went to benefit the Tlingit-Haida HeadStart's graduation ceremony, said Jennifer Ludwigsen, who chaired the event. A fish toss featuring 100 goldfish, 50 beta fish, three lobsters, and three newts was probably the biggest draw, Ludwigsen said.
"I think it went really good," she said.
Local merchants sold homemade jellies, hand-painted signs, and hand-knit scarves among other crafts at a bazaar at the American Legion Hall. Local native organizations held a silent auction. Compared to the raucous carnival, the bazaar was quiet. Business was steady, several vendors said.
Jillian Privett was selling knit caps and high-bush cranberry jelly on behalf of Lynn Allen. The two plan to use part of the proceeds from Saturday's sales to fund a trip. "We're basically going on a road trip in Ireland," she said.
A booth away, Veronica Blunt sold hand-painted wall decorations and serving trays made from pallets, and a catalogue of painted furniture. The booth was a hobby that turned into a commerce opportunity.
"It started because of my mother," she said. "She needed a coffee table."
A little later, at a gold panning and trapping exhibition, children sorted lead nuggets out of lighter mud in a kiddie pool. Panners Mike Lockabey and Ed Kuntz talked about the physics of gold panning, in which heavier gold sinks to the bottom of a pan.
"Why is gold so expensive?" one child asked.
"It's really hard to find," Kuntz said.
Gold panning seemed like a natural extension to an outdoor life, Lockabey said.
"For 25 years, it's been fun," he said. "I've made my entire living off the resources in Southeast Alaska."
Outdoorsy folks looking to take up panning as a pastime should look upstream of rocks, since most of the gold will fall out in the eddies and riffles above the rocks, Kuntz said.
Trapper Scott McAuliffe showed off pelts collected on Wrangell Island: three wolverines and a wolf.
McAuliffe strings trapline in about a 70-mile loop on the island. He demonstrated setting traps and some of the tools he uses.
"I normally start working gear in November, and I go at least twice a week until the end of April," he said.
The price of fur can dictate how many competitors McAuliffe faces in a season. A recent 300 percent uptick in the price of martin fur means more and more trappers are taking to the woods, McAuliffe said.
"Fur prices go up, all the traps come out of the fur shed for everyone that owns them," he said. "Trap prices go down, most people put their gear away."
"Unfortunately, for this year, nobody's getting any help from the weather," he said.
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