Carnival Post-Mortem

ON the weekend before the 1956 Dartmouth Winter Carnival began there was enough snow for skiing at only two New England areas - Mt. Mansfield at Stowe, Vt., and Cannon Mountain at Franconia, N.H. Elsewhere the hills were brown with only an occasional patch of frozen snow, weeks old, to show that winter was still around.

On the same weekend, at Suicide Six in Woodstock, Vt., when owner Bunny Bertram '31 started up the gasoline engine powering his tow, the motor backfired and Bunny found himself fighting a grass fire on his ski slopes. It was a poor winter for skiing. At the Dartmouth Outing Club headquarters in Robinson Hall there were long faces and worried conferences as D.O.C. leaders contemplated cancelling the downhill, slalom and crosscountry races.

But the gods of the north who had for 45 previous years furnished snow for Dartmouth Carnivals did not fail in 1956. On the Tuesday of Carnival week four inches of snow drifted down over the New Hampshire countryside and two days later another four inches descended. It was a case, however, of "too little, too late," for already the Outing Club had spent hundreds of dollars to have snow scraped from ponds and hills and trucked to the jump hill, the center-of-campus statue, and the Outdoor Evening set. Despite the snow fall, three of the four Carnival ski events had to be held in locations remote from Hanover - the slalom at Mount Sunapee, the downhill at Pico Peak, and the cross-country event at Kimball Union Academy in Meriden, N.H. The problems of moving skiers, officials, workers, doctors and ski patrol members to three different locations were enormous and resulted in delays, missed meals, late reports on results, and a host of annoying incidents that made even the staunchest D.O.C. worker shudder.

Fortunately, this is one problem for which a ready solution is just around the corner. The new Dartmouth ski area at Holt's Ledge in Lyme, N.H., will be opened in January 1957 and will provide the trails and slopes needed for the Carnival meets of the future.

While snow (or lack of it) is certainly a major Carnival problem at all times, it is far less crucial than the more important problem now confronting those responsible for staging the annual winter festival. For 46 years the fact that students plan, execute and are responsible for Winter Carnival has been a traditional and very real source of pride for the Outing Club and the College. Student committees have successfully blocked all attempts to commercialize Carnival, have often refused dazzling advertising and promotional schemes, and have clung doggedly to their concepts of what should be the ingredients of this famous "Mardi Gras of the North."

Yet even as these words are written, a committee of D.O.C. student leaders, faculty advisers and College officials are meeting at the specific urging of President Dickey and some of the College Trustees to examine thoroughly the all-important and ever-increasing problem which has beset all recent Winter Carnivals - the lack of student participation and leadership.

John Rand '38, executive director of the Dartmouth Outing Club and the man most responsible for coordinating student efforts, has his own yardstick for predicting how much student support Carnival will get.

"I always watch how the football rally bonfires go in the fall," Rand reports. "If the upperclassmen turn out the freshmen in good style and the bonfires are built without much trouble and strain, I know Carnival will go well. If not, we'll be in trouble. And you know," he concluded, "the bonfire story hasn't been too good these past few years."

There are several reasons for the lack of adequate student cooperation on recent Carnivals. Semester exams do not end until Thursday noon for many students. Other students prefer to leave Hanover after their last exams, returning with dates just in time to join in the fun. The economic situation is also a factor. The D.O.C. still awards complimentary tickets to men who work twenty hours on Carnival preparations. Years ago these tickets were prized. Today, the average student prefers to buy his tickets, and looks upon their cost as a minor expenditure. He is interested in Winter Carnival as a spectator rather than a participant.

Only a few years back more than 100 freshmen, led by their football team, turned out with colored torches to light the way to the Outdoor Evening show and act as police. In 1956 the torches were gone and uniformed police hired from the ranks of College employees and neighboring towns provided the guardian forces for the show.

Carnivals cost money, return at best a slight profit. Carnival income in recent years from sale of tickets, programs, posters, etc., has averaged $8,000 to $9,000 Expenses usually run about $1,000 less, although this year John Rand reports that the D.O.C. will be doing well if they end up $500 in the black.

Most expensive item on the budget is the Outdoor Evening show which costs in the neighborhood of $3,500 for talent, equipment, lighting, construction materi- als, music and miscellaneous. Another $1,500 goes to feed and house the mem- bers of the competing ski teams, and a few hundred more for meals and lodging for meet officials. The center-of-campus snow statue costs about $500 for scaffolding rental, trucking snow and materials, and rubber gloves for workers (a $60 item this year).

Nor should one overlook the $700 spent to provide snow for the jumping hill, or the money that went to purchase drums of ammonium chloride (to stiffen snow), rock salt (to soften snow) and calcium chloride (to make snow stick). Mistakes cost money. A student told to get a single racing bib to replace one missing from a numbered set, ordered an entire set of 100 bibs and turned over a bill of more than 150 to the Club.

But students still remain the backbone of Carnival. Success or failure of the Carnival and of each Carnival event rests squarely on their shoulders. This year more than thirty students were engaged full time on the Outdoor Evening show, another fifty on the jump, about 25 on the downhill, slalom and cross-country races. Included in these groups were student police, ski patrol members, student officials and operational workers. Other students helped out with the visiting press, managed the Queen's Court, worked in Robinson Hall headquarters, and took care of transportation, housing, meals, programs, tickets, and myriad other details. Students still do a grand job with Carnival, but they are getting fewer in number each year.

Superhuman efforts by the few produce the Winter Carnival on schedule, but the strain is beginning to show. Perhaps the biggest headache is the Outdoor Evening show which attracts some 5,000 spectators. Here the D.O.C. must call upon other student organizations such as the student radio station and the Dartmouth Players for personnel, equipment and technical assistance. The problem of direction and control is multiplied enormously and the result this year was a show that left something to be desired in timing, lighting and originality.

Time and again Carnival committees have recommended the abolishment of the Outdoor Evening show. Before the advent of the Ice Follies and Ice Capades, such shows were a novelty and anything produced was new. Today spectators expect a technically perfect, skillfully produced extravaganza which the D.O.C. with its woods-trained personnel cannot be expected to put on.

Some of the slack left by diminishing student participation has been taken up by volunteer workers from the faculty and town. Prof. Edward S. Brown '34 of the Thayer School was responsible for securing meet officials: the timers, scorers, checkers, referees, etc. Dean William P. Kimball '28 of Thayer School headed the trained scoring team which faced a special headache this year when Dartmouth and Middlebury went right down to the wire in scoring. A veteran reporter, figuring the score himself, had Middlebury winning the Carnival meet by 4/100ths of a point and so advised his paper. Racing the clock, scorers rechecked all results before announcing Dartmouth the winner over Middlebury by 1/10th of a point. Bill Danforth '41 is another veteran Carnival worker who returns each year to help with the scoring and act for John Rand when John is away from Robinson Hall. Joe Dodge of Pinkham Notch fame (father of Brooks Dodge '51) is a veteran timer and official. These men and many others from New Hampshire and Vermont contribute their help to Carnival.

The 46th annual Carnival just concluded was outwardly a normal one. The events were the same, the dates just as lovely, the Queen as beautiful, the weather unusually fine and the Dean's office reported student conduct better than usual.

It is safe to predict, however, that future Carnivals will take on a different complexion. The committee now studying the lack of student help may well recommend the abolishment of Outdoor

Evening in its present form, or may even call upon other student groups such as the Undergraduate Council and the Interfraternity Council for advice and a share in the overall responsibility.

The Dartmouth Outing Club, in its varied, year-round program, is as strong as it has been in the past, according to John Rand. "We've got more students participating in the Northern Studies activities, in hunting, fishing, climbing and canoeing," he says, "but the Club is weaker in student leadership and in students who join the group to work. Everyone seems to be saying 'Let Joe lead and we'll go along,' or 'Sounds great, I'll buy a ticket.' "

For 46 years the Dartmouth Winter Carnival has been something special - a symbol of men who turn winter into fun, who work long hours in sub-zero weather to create statues, shows, ski runs and a winter wonderland for all to share. Yet the Carnivals of today cannot long survive on the traditions and heritage of the past. The undergraduates of this year, next year and the immediate years ahead must rebuild Winter Carnival, starting new traditions of their own perhaps, but still adhering to the unchanging fact that the value of Carnival as a part of Dartmouth life can come only from its being genuinely a student responsibility, widely and enthusiastically shared.

John Rand '38 (right), D.O.C. executive director, whose Carnival load grows heavier whenstudent participation shrinks, shown with Bill Danforth '41, who helps out each year.

Behind the scenes with an Outdoor Evening performer

The problem of lighting the Outdoor Evening set can be guessed from this small section of the complicated wiring system required.

Two student helpers on the job at Pico Peak where the Carnival slalom was run.

The five-man board of judges for picking the Queen

Truckloads of snow were brought in to pack the big jump just before Carnival,

Dean William P. Kimball '28 of Thayer School (extreme left) has for several years handledthe important job of announcing the Carnival jump and directing the scoring team.