Looking for something different to do this weekend? Well here you go! The annual Frozen Dead Guy Days will be held, rain, snow, or shine this Friday, March 2nd through Sunday the 4th, in the small mountain community of Nederland, Colorado. For those of you that have never attended such a festival, you are missing a treat. There are few people who know how to celebrate better than these tundra dwellers, especially during the seemingly endless mud season known to others as spring.
The spinning of this yarn begins in Norway, with a man’s death in November of 1989. To fulfill the old man’s request, his body was flown to California and cryogenically preserved so in the event that scientific advancements would ever allow, he could be given a second lease on life. His wish was granted and the man was preserved, but what do you do with a frozen dead guy? When presented with the costs for storing the giant freezer bag, the family quickly realized they could not afford the cooler space at the lab. So they devised a plan to keep their Grandfather in a make-shift freezer set up at home, for a mere fraction of the price. The frozen body of Grandpa Bredo was transported to Nederland, Colorado by his loving grandson Trygve Bauge in 1993, and stored in a garden shed behind the house.
Somehow I imagine there might be a bit more to keeping a body in a cryogenic state than a sack of ice and a shed. Now no one knows for sure if it was a stiff wind, or just the local gossip, but the word got out about old Grandpa popsicle chillin’ out in the shed, and the local officials ordered his deportation back to Norway in 1994. For some peculiar reason, the actual procession home to Norway never took place, and to this day his body lies in state, frozen, out back in the shed.
In 2002 the town decided to create a spring festival to honor their human ice sculpture. The old guy gets a chance once a year to attend his own party, by being paraded though town followed by hundreds, many in costumes as odd as the festival itself, in a crazy sort of Danse Macabre. To some this might seem a bit morbid, but I can tell you after living in a small mountain community myself for almost 20 years, any reason that justifies cause to celebrate is a good one, and seemingly the stranger the better, and this one definitely strikes on both counts.
Each year local Nederlandians welcome hundreds of others to help celebrate the frosty old codger they now claim as their town’s main attraction. And you have to admit…………….. it’s a much more interesting claim to fame than the largest ball of twine.
