Houlton event attracts eye of Nickelodeon Moosestompers celebration to feature parade, bonfires, ball

HOULTON – The moose is loose on Nickelodeon.

Moosestomper’s Weekend, Houlton’s annual celebration of winter, will be a featured segment between 4 and 6 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 31, on the Stamps and Sports program on the Nickelodeon Network.

According to Paula Gendron, executive director of the Greater Houlton Chamber of Commerce, which sponsors the annual event, the Chamber got a call Jan. 11 from the producer of the Stamps and Sports show at Nickelodeon Studios in Orlando, Fla., inquiring about Moosestompers.

“Periodically, Nickelodeon goes Web surfing for things happening around the country, and low and behold, they found us,” said Gendron, adding that the event has its own Web site at moosestompers.com.

“I think the name Moosestompers invokes curiosity in people,” she said, adding that another time the Chamber got a call from a reporter in London, England, who had read about the event.

After talking with Gendron, the producer of the Stamps and Sports program asked the Chamber to send as much documentation as possible so a segment could be filmed the following week.

Videotapes, photos, the 2002 schedule and newspaper clippings were sent by courier to Florida, and the Moosestompers segment was taped Jan. 18.

“The Nickelodeon broadcast will give some great positive news for Houlton,” Gendron said. “It bodes well for the event.”

Moosestompers came to Houlton in 1997 when former Town Manager Alan Bean brought the idea of the Moosestompers Ball to Houlton from Loring Air Force Base in Limestone, where he had been base commander.

The event had been so popular there, Bean said, that Air National Guard crews en route to Bosnia would try to make sure their stopover at Loring was on Moosestompers night.

“It started with the Moosestomper’s Ball, and it’s grown to three days,” said Gendron.

This year, events will get under way at 4:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 1, with a spaghetti dinner at the Linneus Sno-Sports clubhouse. The Houlton Elks Club will hold a teriyaki dinner at 5 p.m.

At 6 p.m., a varsity hockey game between teams from Millinocket’s Stearns High School and Presque Isle High School will be held at the John Millar Civic Center. A snowmobile parade through downtown Houlton will begin at 7:30 p.m. and will end at Community Park where a giant bonfire will be lit at 8 p.m.

From 8:30 to 10:30 p.m., the civic center will be open to the public for free ice-skating.

Events on Saturday, Feb. 2, will begin at 6 a.m. with a breakfast at the Meduxnekeag Ramblers Snowmobile Club in Littleton. Throughout the morning and into the evening at Community Park in Houlton, events ranging from human sled dog races, human curling, and a hockey shootout to a giant sliding hill, another bonfire and a fireworks display will be held.

The Wild Katahdin Trust Snow Run, which began 20 years ago in Patten and Sherman Station, will get under way at 11 a.m. at the civic center. The 5K race is believed to be the only February running race held in Maine.

Saturday will end with the traditional Moosestompers Ball starting at 9 p.m. at the Lounge Downunder at the Shiretown Motor Inn.

On Sunday, Feb. 3, there will be a 7 a.m. breakfast at the Smoki-Hauler’s Snowmobile Club in Oakfield. A snowmobile trail ride to the event from the Shiretown Motor Inn will leave at 8 a.m.

At Community Park, the sliding hill will reopen at 11 a.m. There also will be free snowmobile rides, horse-drawn sleigh rides and free indoor ice skating.

From 1 to 3 p.m. a kids’ art exploration design contest will be held upstairs at the civic center. Gendron said the winning designs will be made into posters and hung downtown to promote next year’s event.

“Bears hibernate, moose don’t,” said Gendron laughing. “Moosestompers celebrates winter rather than summer like everything else.

“This is a celebration of winter for the whole family,” she said.