Winter Carnival Starts Tomorrow!

The Saranac Lake 2008 Winter Carnival, themed "Hooray for Hollywood," starts tomorrow.
The Carnival, which will run from this Friday until February 10th, is the longest running event of its kind in the Eastern United States. This year marks the carnival's 111th year. Begun as a one-day event to break the monotony of the long Adirondack winter, the Carnival has grown into a ten-day festival that includes sporting activities, dances, dramatic and musical productions, two parades (one especially for children) and two sets of fireworks above the world famous Ice Palace. According to organizers, in spite of the many changes, the Carnival has retained the warmth, charm and camaraderie of a family and community celebration, replete with reunions of friends and families. Today's image is a vintage post card featuring an ice palace of prior years. I drove by the site of the ice palace yesterday where volunteers and the not-so-volunteering inmates were busy building this year's palace. It looks like it is going to be a good one. The Winter Carnival scene is pretty neat, especially for children. It is certainly a different sort of entertainment, and a good example of how people coped with long winters before reality shows and snowmobiles.