Large Fierce Mammal

A whole 31 days in October every year, and it still can’t hold all the shit I find in the 12 months leading up to it. Ah well, one does what one can.

“Frozen Dead Guy Days” is an annual event held in Nederland, Colorado – next scheduled for 7, and, and 9 March 2014 – that found its genesis in the arrival of a frozen Norwegian named Bredo Morstoel. That’s right, he was already frozen when he got there, his remains having been consigned to a cryogenic storage facility after his death in 1989. In case you’ve forgotten, cryogenic storage is sought by people who have themselves quick frozen after death in hope of being cured of what killed them at some point down the line, just as soon as medical science and the general state of giving a shit makes it possible and desirable for them to stage a comeback.

As chronicled in a New York Daily News article from 27 September 2012, at which time there was a chance the festival’s namesake would soon be bound for alternate lodgings in Michigan, here is the back story in the strange matter of the frozen dead guy:

Morstoel died of heart failure in his native Norway in 1989, and (grandson Tryve Bauge) had his grandfather’s body frozen and transported to a cryonics facility in California. Ultimately he had the corpse moved to Nederland, where Bauge lived at the time.

When Bauge was deported because of an expired visa, he hired Bo Shaffer  to act as an unofficial caretaker.

At first, townspeople in the mountain village 17 miles southwest of Boulder, Colorado, were aghast at the thought of a frozen body being stored in their midst.

But they ultimately embraced the idea of an annual festival surrounding its most famous, albeit deceased, resident.

But there was trouble in paradise. The article elaborates:

A financial dispute between … Bauge, and the man hired to replenish the dry ice on a monthly basis, Bo Shaffer, has led to Bauge threatening to move his grandfather’s body out of Colorado.

Each month for 18 years, Shaffer has hauled 1,700 pounds (770 kg) of dry ice – carbon dioxide in solid form – to a remote shed above Nederland to keep the corpse of Morstoel at -24 degrees Fahrenheit (-31 degrees Celsius) and in a state of cryonic suspension.

But Shaffer said he quit after Bauge refused to pay for the rising costs of fuel and ice, which has made the endeavor unprofitable.

“It takes two of us to make the four-hour roundtrip,” Shaffer told Reuters. “My quitting is the only way to get his (Bauge’s) attention.”

Shaffer – AKA “The Iceman” – has published his experiences as arguably the frozen dead guy’s closest associate, in a book titled Colorado’s Iceman and the Story of the Frozen Dead Guy.

Events slated for this year’s festival include coffin racing, costumed polar plunging, frozen T-shirt contests. ice Turkey bowling, brain freeze contests, the ever popular parade of hearses, frozen Salmon toss, snowy beach volleyball, and live music performed by a band called The Blue Ball. There have also been tours to the resting place of Morstoel’s sarcophagus, although event organizers point out that he is not personally open for viewing.

License plate on a hearse participating in the 2007 “Frozen Dead Guy Days” parade of hearses. This reminds me of the plate on a souped up hearse modified for fun by a funeral home director of my own  acquaintance. His reads “OVERTAKER”. (Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/colorado-frozen-dead-guy-festival-corpse-article-1.1169672)

For more information, consult the official Frozen Dead Guy Days website. If you want to go, freeze those dates now!