In 1973, Dartmouth's residence halls competed to see who could use the least energy during Winter term, according to Jackie Ackerman '77. The winner received a keg of beer from the College, Ackerman said, noting that the legal drinking age was 18 when she was a student.
"We had just come off the Arab oil embargo, and we were competing all year round to conserve energy," Ackerman said. "We'd freeze to death in the dorms hoping to win that keg."
While the College no longer appeals to students' penchant for alcohol to conserve energy, other longstanding Carnival traditions like the polar bear swim and the giant snow sculpture on the Green have remained intact for years.
Mary-Ellyn Tarzy '78 said she helped build the snow sculpture in order to obtain tickets for the annual concert held in Webster Hall, which is now home to Rauner Special Collections Library.
"I remember Cheech and Chong came one year," she said. "It gave me an incentive to help out with the statue."
In 1976, the snow sculpture took the form of the Statue of Liberty wearing a Dartmouth sweater in celebration of the United States's bicentennial, according to Ackerman.
"For me, working on that sculpture was the big highlight of the weekend," she said.
In the past, residence halls and Greek houses would create their own, smaller sculptures, Harry Bennett '53 recounted.
"I lived in Richardson [Hall], and the fraternity right behind me built a sculpture of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," Bennett said. "That was the big song one year. They played it 24 hours a day, and I was in a room a couple hundred feet from there."
A member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity who graduated in 1979 said many Greek organizations' snow sculptures were somewhat less appropriate than the one featured on the Green.
"There were always a lot of X-rated ones that weren't actually the official contest entries," he said.
The alumnus, who asked to remain anonymous, also described what he called the "Russell Sage Downhill," a Winter Carnival tradition among the more fearless members of the Dartmouth Ski Patrol.
"The guys from Ski Patrol used to hang onto their worst, beat-up skis and have a race down the central staircase in Russell Sage," he said. "The landings all had granite-lipped stairs, and it could be pretty slippery. We would start on the fourth floor and see who could go the fastest down all four flights, hanging onto the railings and swinging ourselves around them."
Before the College's 1972 decision to admit women, they would be bussed from other colleges in the Northeast to visit the Dartmouth campu and take part in the Carnival Weekend festivities each year.
"The girls usually came in by train, and crowds of men would go down to White River [Junction] to meet them," Bennett said. "Since many of them were blind dates, we sometimes had trouble finding each other, and a lot of us had to wear name tags."
Many blind dates would end with mixed results, Bennett said.
"Some [couples] were very happy together on Sunday, when it was time for the trains to leave, and some were just as happy to be leaving," he said. "Seeing that was always interesting."
