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One difference between Anchorage, Alaska, and Pamplona, Spain, is the cuisine. At the Anchorage Fur Rendezvous on Sunday you could buy reindeer sausage, reindeer salami, reindeer grinders and reindeer nachos prior to the third annual Running of the Reindeer.
Like the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, the Anchorage event has hoofed, horned animals chasing a festive mob of people. Unlike Pamplona, the Anchorage runners got to pet and hug their docile pursuers as they picked up their bibs prior to race time. Another difference is the snow -- which didn't seem to bother upwards of 2,000 runners who clogged Fourth Avenue for the bizarre one-block race. Zany costumes abounded. The giant butterfly costumes from the Ski for Women earlier this month were back, though not necessarily the same women wearing them. There were Vikings, a purple moose, a creature from "Where the Wild Things Are," a guy wearing a whole polar bear hide and, appropriately, a team of butchers. The running consisted of five heats, starting with the Celebrity Run with luminaries like former Lt. Governor Loren Leman. This was the only set where one could clearly discern the ungulates among the humanoids. In the following men's, women's and group races -- not to mention the final free-for-all in which everyone could line up and do it again -- the reindeer caught up with the crowd before the back of the biped pack had cleared the starting line on F Sreet. By the time the melee reached the finish on E Street, where the reindeer were herded into a corral, it was a thorough mix of more than 100 people per reindeer, all running or jostling side by side. Six deer in pursuit was the rule for most races except the final one, when I think I counted a dozen. One pulled free of its leash before the start of the free-for-all, but circled around tamely until the tramping began and the loose deer got caught up in the excitement and joined its fellows in bolting into the mass of runners. It was hard to tell if the reindeer found it fun; one imagines that the smell of sizzling colleagues near the finish should have struck them as suspicious. But the runners and a throng of spectators -- which seemed to outnumber the crowd watching the preceding sled dog races -- enjoyed a mood of boisterous revelry. In three years, this uniquely Alaska entertainment has become arguably the biggest Rondy event. More important, proceeds from the $25 entry fees went to the Toys for Tots charity. And delivering toys to kids is, as everyone knows, the highest calling to which a reindeer can aspire.