Winter Carnival has always been a weekend filled with friends, parties, snow and memories.
Whether they spent the weekend in fraternity basements or out skiing on the slopes, many Dartmouth alumni still vividly recall the Carnivals they celebrated during their four-year stay in Hanover.
Peter Beekman '69 remembers Winter Carnival as a time of good parties and phenomenal snow sculptures.
"Winter Carnival back then was far different than it is now. At this point, it is all a blur of happy memories," he said.
Beekman's most poignant memory is of Winter Carnival 1969, when the College got "its first taste of coeducation," albeit through rather unusual and unexpected circumstances.
Dartmouth did not begin admitting women until 1972, and before that time the men of Dartmouth invited dates up for Carnival weekend.
The College would reserve one or two residence halls for the visiting women and require male fraternity brothers to move out of their houses so the guests would have a place to stay.
During that fateful Winter Carnival weekend in 1969, a severe blizzard hit the Hanover area.
"The snow came that Saturday night, and it is the only time I remember the roads open between New Hampshire and Vermont being closed off," Beekman said.
"The College was faced with an interesting dilemma," Beekman added, "because all of the fraternity brothers and students were moving back into their rooms, but the women were unable to leave campus."
Beekman said everyone went to classes the following Monday, including the 2,000 or so snowbound dates.
Albert Olson '61 said girls arrived by train during Winter Carnival. "It was a big deal to meet the train," he said.
Not only did the visiting women stay in the fraternities, but couples had to be closely chaperoned by parents or someone older, Olson recalled.
"My parents came all the way out from Nebraska to chaperone," he said. "I remember taking my parents to the Vermont state liquor store because you could only buy a certain amount of booze per person, and we were all drinking more than I could buy."
"All of my fraternity brothers were trying to get my dad drunk," he added.
Olson said parties were a big part of the weekend, and bands came in from out-of-town to play.
In particular, Olson remembers one underclassman repeatedly asking the same woman to dance.
"The next morning we found out it was [former Dean of the College] Thaddeus Seymour's wife," he said.
Sports were an important part of the weekend as well, especially hockey and basketball, according to Olson.
He said he also remembers watching the ski jumping event on the golf course.
Olson recalled one snowless Winter Carnival when the College had to truck snow in.
"I also remember another year when we had to stop at the intersections on the Green because the snow was piled up so high you couldn't see if people were walking on the paths in the opposite direction," he added.
"If you just ran right through, you were sure to run into someone," Olson said.
Olson said he has many fond and lasting memories from the Winter Carnival weekends he spent at Dartmouth.
"It was great," he said. "We were a college without women, and this, along with Green Key, was one of the few weekends we had all sorts of women at Dartmouth."
Stephen Dunn '58 said he didn't really mind Winter Carnival on an all-male campus.
"We took it as part of the College that women weren't there," he said. A lot of women came up to take part in the weekend, he added.
Dunn echoed Olson's thoughts, saying he remembers Winter Carnival as a big sports weekend.
"All the teams had events going on throughout the weekend," Dunn said.
In particular, he cited the ski jump on the golf course.
"No one ever went to watch ski jumping, except during the weekend of Winter Carnival," he said. "It was a big event and a very interesting thing for the dates to see."
In addition to the sports, Dunn said fraternity parties were a big part of the weekend.
Stephen Collins '80 remembers Winter Carnival as "a blur of the alcohol-induced sort," but also recalls the excitement of the ski jump competition.
He cited it as a prime example of the traditions younger generations of Dartmouth students have "missed out" on.
"Everyone would go out to the golf course and watch," Collins said. "It was like the Olympics."
In 1979 there was no snow on the Green, so the father of Meredith Mack '79 -- a member of the family who created the Mack truck -- arranged for a fire truck to be brought up from Manchester and hooked up to a snow-making machine in the middle of the Green.
"We had this big, white snow sculpture surrounded by the snowless Green," Collins said. "It was a good technological feat."
"People would bring their dates and bring their beverages and watch those maniacs go off the jumps," he added.
"There was great anticipation over where everyone would find their dates," Collins said.
A popular date-hunting tradition was known as "Winter Carnival ding letters," Collins said. "It was a long-standing tradition that guys would write women, asking them to be their dates for the weekend."
Their targets would be celebrities such as Rosalyn Carter or the stars of "Charlie's Angels."
According to Collins, "The point was: a) to get a date, and b) to get a response."
These responses, or "ding letters," would either be published in The Dartmouth or posted on dorm and fraternity bulletin boards.
