Rebecca Hylton’s first job as our new tourism director should be putting the finishing touches on Winterfest weekend in Haines.
Former tourism director Leslie Ross provided the vision of combining several winter events, including the state fair’s winter games, the Miles Klehini Ski Classic and the Koot to Kat Mountain Adventure race on the same weekend at the end of February.
The idea was genius. The weather here on the last weekend of February seems as consistently wintery as this place gets.
In the first few years, dozens of competitors from Juneau and Whitehorse, Y.T. came for the mountain race. Residents turned out to skate, ski or snowshoe at Dalton City and others gathered for the classic, a 10K loppet at 25 Mile.
A winter sports film festival was shown during a dinner at Harriett Hall.
The revival of the Dick Hotch Basketball Tournament and – perhaps more importantly, the scheduling of a junior high hoops tournament on Winterfest weekend – added other big lures for folks from around the region to visit.
Only a few items were necessary to create a blockbuster weekend here that could pack our hotels and restaurants: A few thousand dollars in promotional advertising in Alaska and Yukon and a few nighttime events – a play perhaps at the Chilkat Center, or live music at downtown bars, or both.
(For example, the Alaska Arts Confluence performances of the play “Love Letters” on Feb. 18-19, held one weekend later, would have coincided perfectly with Winterfest.)
A big glitch came this year. The mountain race – led by a small band of volunteers – was scratched this year under the weight of a the large volunteer effort necessary to pull it off and a smaller number of volunteers to do the work.
The long-term solution to this problem is creation of a full-time recreation director job in Haines to lead large sports activities in our tourist town (which are constantly disappearing), but that’s another story. A motivated tourism director with a calendar and a phone could have helped pull off the mountain race this year, but that position was vacant.
In the absence of leadership, the state fair was deputized to help promote the weekend. Winterfest weekend was fun but more people make for more fun and more people mean more money in local cash registers.
Reviving the mountain race as an annual event and promoting Winterfest weekend shouldn’t require a gargantuan effort. Judging from this past weekend, we’re already most of the way there.
Hylton and her Tourism Advisory Board should set their sights on fine-tuning Winterfest as the town’s premiere mid-winter event. Such festivals are a staple of life in towns all over the North, happening at a time when Northerners want nothing more than an excuse to get out their own houses and go visiting.
There a many ways to bring more visitors to Haines. This one should be a gimme.