Flour Packing Contest
by Al Myers
Uwe Meyer training for a flour packing contest. This takes the Inman Mile to the extreme!
All of the recent talk on the Inman Mile in the USAWA Discussion Forum brought up another topic. Longtime USAWA member Tom Ryan brought up a competition I had never heard of before – Flour Packing. He posted a video of this competition in the forum, but I’m going to include it here as well for those of you that don’t follow the forum –Video of Flour Packing Contest. The rules of the contest is to carry a max load of flour over a 50 foot course. This event is part of the annual Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous held in Whitehorse, Canada. This dates for this year’s competition is February 23-26, 2012. Many other events are contested throughout the several days of this festival, including: sled dog races, a dog pull, a wilderness survival contest, a trapping contest, chainsaw competitions, a partner pack competition, and even things like a beard growing contest and tattoo competition!
The above photo with newspaper caption was sent to me by Tom Ryan. I would guess it was taken in the 1970’s because Uwe Meyer held the record in flour packing at that time, with his carry of 850 pounds of flour. Tom must keep everything that interests him because I don’t know of too many people who keep clips from newspapers that long! (also it shows your age Tom!!). But I’m glad he did – because it gives us something to talk about today in the USAWA Daily News. Since that time, Richard Chipett has raised the record to 1002 pounds.
If you are further interested in the Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous, they do have a quite extensive website covering the festival (Yukon Festival Website).