Anchorage Daily News

How Alaskan was this?

Anchorage finishes building its spacious, new $111 million Dena'ina Civic and Convention Center in September, but waits until a bone-cold morning in mid-October to stage its grand opening festivities -- outdoors.

"I really don't understand that yet," Mayor Mark Begich joked apologetically, addressing about 100 hearty onlookers who huddled against a northeast breeze in front of the convention center Saturday.

The wind chill factor moved the temperature down into the teens at the ribbon-cutting on Seventh Avenue. Where goats bleated, pigs oinked and ducks quacked in the street fair on one side of the podium, and a team of sled dogs held in check by Iditarod champion musher Martin Buser howled on the other.

Sensing something might be up, the huskies' joy rose a few octaves just as Anchorage Visitor and Convention Bureau board chairman Steve Silverstein tried to speak. Arrrrrrooooo, they cried. "I really appreciate all the enthusiasm out there," Silverstein said.

Eklutna Native elder Alberta Stephan delivered an Athabascan prayer, followed by a few memories about growing up in old Anchorage, where she was born in a tent to parents who worked for the Alaska Railroad.

Ten-year-old Rosie Rush, a local grade-school girl with a grown-up voice, belted out a polished and powerful national anthem. A frozen-fingered brass band played the Alaska Flag Song. A few more speakers spoke. Then came the coup d' grace.

Riding the brake behind a five-dog team, Buser slipped his sled -- mounted on rollers -- through the crowd, then swung it around on a crash course for the main entry as his handlers tried to restrain the team. The mayor stepped on the runners, convention bureau president Julie Saupe slipped into the basket and Buser released the team, which dashed through the front doors, breaking apart the grand-opening banner taped to the opening inside. The Dena'ina was officially open.

Inside, throngs of visitors were already examining the 215,000-square-foot facility at close range as the two-day-long open-house celebration got under way. Festivities resume today at 10 a.m.

Commanding the most attention on Saturday was the 2008 Oxygen & Octane Expo, a sprawling display of all types of winter gear for sale, from snowboards to snowmachines to hot-tubs, which filled the showroom on the bottom floor.

Singers and musicians and jugglers performed in various rooms. Local Dena'ina historian Aaron Leggett explained the Native art work to a crowd gathered in the lower lobby.

Displays throughout the three-story facility, which features a 25,000-square-foot ballroom on the top floor, touted facts and figures about its construction, which was completed "on time and on budget" by Neeser Construction, Inc.

Little known fact No. 1: Two state-of-the-art coffee machines in the kitchen are capable of brewing 9,576 cups of coffee an hour. Little known fact No. 2: One of the building's two elevators is large enough to hoist an African elephant.

Buser chose not to test it, however, with his sled dogs. He quickly "gee-ed" the team in the lobby and zipped out a side door back to the street. At his truck, children circled around the dogs. Was that the first time he'd ever mushed a team through the glass doors of a convention center? someone asked.

"Oh, many times, many times," Buser said. "This was nothing. This was an easy gig. I once went to Juneau and did an appearance where we had to go up three flights of stairs -- with lots of corners."

So the Dena'ina was easy traveling.

Find George Bryson online at adn.com/contact/gbryson or call 257-4318.

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