Snow Or Not, The Show Goes On Deer Park Winter Festival Missing One Feature

Everything seemed in order.

Crowds gathered to watch dogs take turns pulling hundreds of pounds of concrete blocks in the Deer Park South Mall parking lot.

People ate chili and took carriage rides in front of the Yoke’s Pac & Save. But the 15th annual Deer Park Winter Festival was missing a most important guest.

Snow - glorious piles of cold, slick stuff to tramp through, and make sleds and snowmobiles useful.

Saturday, dogs had to pull a cart on four wheels.

Two inches of snow fell Friday night, but most of it melted off by noon. The snowshoe softball game was canceled, as were the snowmobile drag races. Today’s snowman-building contest was in jeopardy.

Next year, if all goes as planned for festival president Tim Gilbert, the weekend event will be snowed under. He wants to move it to February.

“We haven’t had any snow (for the festival) in the last four to five years,” Gilbert grumbled.

What’s to blame? Global warming?

“El Nino, I think. That’s what everyone says,” he said.

A large man with a rugged beard, Gilbert is a retired truck driver who grew up in Spokane. “I remember a time in January when you couldn’t walk over to another house because there was so much snow.”

Curious, he checked the Internet and discovered that more snow falls in February. A snowmobile-racing friend agreed.

Gilbert will suggest the change during the post-festival meeting in February. In the meantime, snow or no snow, the show went on.

An electronic sign in the mall parking lot flashed 38 degrees Saturday afternoon, but the wind made it colder.

Fur hats, crossed arms and hunched shoulders told Marilyn Lindh all she needed to know. She watched the dog-pull from inside Zip’s Family Drive Inn. A woman in the next booth chatted about the event, pointing out last year’s winners.

“The closeness you have in a small town you don’t get in a city,” Lindh said.

She graduated from Deer Park High in 1959. As her classmates around the country retire, she’s finding they return to their home town.

Some may have been in the crowd of about 150. They cheered for the fox-sized canines that looked more like lap pets than athletes. The 70-pound huskies would pull later.

One small dog warmed the crowd. He’s called Eddie, a schipperke, a Belgian breed of dog with a thick black coat.

In his better days, Eddie has pulled 1,160 pounds. Saturday, he got the crowd cheering as the tugged on his harness to move more than a halfton.

When Eddie knew it wouldn’t budge, he jumped on top of the cart and sat down. His owner, Dixie Smith, of Kalispell, Mont., shot him a look. The crowd cheered and laughed.

“The crowds love the little dogs,” Smith said afterward. Eddie still won by pulling 999 pounds.

Despite the snowless chill, about 2,000 people showed up Saturday for arts and crafts shows, children’s games and a rousing game of broom ball - hockey with brooms.

Malina Strong, Deer Park Fair Queen, took the field with her high school mates to face off with the local fire department. Each year, they lose to the men in fire pants and boots, but Strong said she wouldn’t take any guff this year.

“I’m pretty aggressive,” she said before the game.

Gilbert cheered them on.

“I don’t want you girls beating up on the firemen,” he said. “When you get one down just kick him once.”

He looked around at the scattered crowds. He was pleased.

“This weekend, we really had a turnout, didn’t we?” he said.

This sidebar appeared with the story: IF YOU GO Deer Park Winter Festival continues today from 7-10 a.m. with a pancake breakfast at the Civic Center. A treasure hunt starts at 11 a.m. at Perrins Field, followed by outhouse races at 1:30 p.m.