South OZ Adventurers - Adventure, Travel, Expeditions


Peclian - The 4th of July

As Australians the 4th of July was of no real signifigance to us and consiquently we hadn't amde any plans of where we were going to be or what we were going to do. Probably just paddle.

However Mike at Point Retreat told us about Pelican, and the famous Rosie's Bar, and that that was where we wanted to be for the Fouth "For the best Party in Alaska".

So afterour 43 Nm epic we paddled into Pelican looking for somewhere to camp, but really for Rosie's.

We paddled up to the what looked to be, and is, the only piece of permanent solid ground in the whole town. Having gladly removed ourselves from our boats we went in search of a cleansing ale or two. As we entered Rosies the first thing that I saw was a guy sitting in his underpants having a beer and the guy next to him having his pants ripped off by two girls, and nobody seeming to care at all. Looked like we could be in for a bit of a wild night.

The night continued to slide, fast. With fireworks being set off from the doorway of the bar, and the free drinks bell being rung more and more frequently we decided that it would probably be time to hit the sack at about 11. We had been up since 2 that morning and paddling for most of the day.

So the next day dawned with more than a few sore heads about town, but we stumbled out of camp to into town, about 50 metres, for a strong coffee and to catch the Fourth of July Parade.

It was definitely different, and didn't really have too much to do with the revolution or anything patriot, which I don't think is normal. But the parade went all the way through town, about 100 metres, and with only a dozen floats it was all over pretty quickly. The parade made its way to the tidal flats on the outside of town where the games begun.

At first we weren't really too sure what was going on, there were lots of very serious races going on, from 50 metre sprints, to three legged races and sack races, all of them fueled by budwieser, and the $5 prize for the winner. Not being runners we passed on all the activities, until the egg throwing came up, with its $50 prize. "Kim get an egg" being the three time Kangaroo Island champion I thought i could get all these seppos licked. But I didn't count on the power of Kim's throw, which ended with me having raw egg all over my hands, but luckily that was all.

After the egg toss was the grand finale of the Pelican 4th of July festivities. The famous greased poll slide.

This is something that can only happen in a place like pelican, where there aren't people to shut fun things down. What it involves is attatching a 20 foot poll to the dock, greasing it up with lard, placing a small US flag on the end and then getting have all the locals place money into a pool for whoever manages to grab the flag first.

With the pot reaching in excess of $700 this is something that draws the whole town, plus a lot of outsiders. The flag was eventually grabbed by a young local guy called John, with a prize of $835, not too bad for a 1 second slide! And apparently only one broken nose is pretty good!

Once the Poll Slide had finished, it was back to the serious side of the day, supporting the local and state economy by consuming as much Alaskan Beer as possible. Not being patriotic Alaskans we performed rather poorly in this activity, probably had something to do with the night before..... but we managed to last until about midnight and watch the fireworks, which were set off from the tidal flats, we didn't find out what happens if the tide doesn't correspond with the schedule for the activities!?!