When I first heard of Dartmouth Winter Carnival, I pictured ferris wheels and carousels surrounding a cotton candy-covered Green. I saw hay rides in snow plows, tug-of-wars between clowns and lumberjacks, and Pele dribbling his soccer ball triumphantly through the streets of Hanover. Upon matriculation, I realized that I may have been led astray.
History shows that the Dartmouth Winter Carnival has been many things to many people. Begun primarily to celebrate winter sports, the name itself has prophesized its evolution. Only a "carnival" could prompt hundreds of people to flock to rural New Hampshire in the dead of winter every year (I'm still trying to convince friends from my arts high school in North Carolina that Dartmouth does not lie in the Arctic Circle).
Soon after the christening of "Winter Carnival," a true carnival evolved. Ornate decorations, prestigious events, and elaborate dances all became the norm in the snow-covered town of Hanover. Thank goodness the founders chose to name it "carnival" instead of "Smackdown."
As both upperclassmen and alums have and will point out, with time comes change. Winter Carnival changes every year. Carnival for some older alums when they were students at Dartmouth was an opportunity to invite women to campus. To these people, coeducation must be like a year-long carnival. Some purists believe that Carnival is strictly to celebrate winter sports. Others feel that, without the keg jump, there are no winter sports. And still others celebrate any combination of "winter," "sports," and "kegs."
Unfortunately, some people think that the best carnivals are behind us. Whether it is the manner in which some choose to "celebrate," the end of the Ms. Winter Carnival pageant, or the switch from ice to snow sculptures, people who believe these changes diminish the magic of carnival should pause and think again. Carnival changes every year because the Dartmouth community changes every year. In my three and a half years alone, I have seen a dramatic amount of change. We've gone from 'shmen to seniors, from shmob to making fun of shmobs, from iMac to I-bank, from a dark shortcut towards Webster Ave. to Berry Library, from a lot of construction to, well, still a lot of construction. Winter Carnival has been one of the few constants. Even when the release of the Student Life Initiative my sophomore winter resulted in the cancellation of parties and events, the underlying spirit of carnival remained the same. Students and alums mingled together in the cold, amazed and somewhat appalled at the media invasion that had suddenly disrupted our peaceful campus. The excitement aroused by the Initiative, the threat to old traditions as well as the threat of an uncertain future, was clear proof of our adoration for this small college on the hill.
I look forward to Winter Carnival every year, knowing that each year I will have more fun than I did the year before. Sure, I'll look at future carnivals as inferior to mine, and there is absolutely no way people had more fun in the 20s than I will this year. Granted, I still haven't managed to make it through Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey without falling asleep but I'm definitely not planning on hibernating during this year's Ice Odyssey. The tables have turned, I'm importing my boyfriend, an ancient '99 from New York, and heck! I'm inviting Pele too.
