A Norwegian Frozen Dead Guy? What the hell is this all about, and why do they have a festival in his honor every year in Nederland, Colorado, a mountain town of 1,500 not far from the Peoples Republic of Boulder? Are these Nedheads as they call themselves, Rocky Mountain stoned or what? (Perhaps. After all they were one of the first towns in Colorado to legalize marijuana possession and use but don't get too excited, state law still prevails giving a legal police bully billy club to the Anti-Weed Gestapo of Colorado Law Enforcement!)
To answer the first question about being Rocky Mountain stoned, in the spirit of fun, yes! There is a festival held ever year in honor of the Frozen Dead Guy that draws thousands from around the world to a town high in night and day of the living dead attitude near the Continental Divide. (Bear in mind this town once voted a parrot into office as it's mayor!) It's held on the first full weekend in March and includes, appropriately, coffin races, a slow-motion parade, and the election of the Dead Ice Queen, and the "Frozen Dead Guy Look-A-Like Contest. There is also a frozen t-shirt contest..now there's an awesome visual, eh?
But..why? Who is this Dead Guy we speak of, and why do we celebrate his death, and not his life?
Our story begins in the frozen land of Norway in a time warp galaxy far, far away. In 1989 a Norwegian citizen named Trygve brought the corpse of his recently deceased Granpa Bredo to Colorado. The Bredo Body was packed in dry ice to preserve it for the Atlantic crossing and then stored in liquid nitrogen at the Trans Time Cryonics facility in California from then until 1993 when Grandpa Bredo once more packed up his dead bags as you was packed once again in dry ice for the trip to Nederland, Colorado, where he had family. The family made a dismal attempt to build their own cryonics facility in an old shed at the back of Grandpa Bredos' daughters house. Aud was her name.
In a nutshell, Trygve was eventually deported for overstaying his visa, and Aud was evicted for living in a house with no electricity or plumbing in violation of local ordinances. She was afraid her grandfathers body would thaw out, then what? A local reporter got a hold of the story the rest-in-piece piece is now journalism history. The city fathers caved in and re-wrote the ordinance regarding keeping dead bodies and/or body parts, however, made an exception for Aud in what they called "a grandfather clause."
Eventually the local Tuff Shed supplier and a Denver radio station teamed up the gather the masses to build a new shed to keep Grandpa in frozen in time with cryogenic help from Delta Tech Corporation. Bo Shaffer, the CEO of the company is known as 'The Iceman" for transporting the dry ice necessary for Grandpa Bredo's cryopreservation. The stage was now set for the grand entrance of the first Frozen Dead Guy Festival held in 2002.
Today the festival is bigger than ever and it has a tour of the Tuff Shed where grandpa is still frozen, a polar plunge in the Colorado River, March is a bit chilly. there is a dance called Grandpa's Blue Ball, a market showcasing local arts from artists, show shoe races, and snow sculpture contes. The city of Boulder had a company called Glacier Ice Cream and they developed a flavor specifically for the fest, named, Frozen Dead Guy. it has fruit flavored blue ice cream mixed with Oreo cookies and gummy worms. There was a point in time when Grandpa Bredo's family became disgusted with the festival and all it's attention so the canceled the Tuff Shed Tours in 2005, but time marches on, and the Frozen Dead Guy does too. Like Lazarus rising from the dead he made a comeback in 2010.
Colorado seems to have a thing for the bizarre. For example, there is a bronze bust of Alferd Packer, known affectionately as America's Cannibal in the lunchroom at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Seems old Alferd packed away five companions as a meal during a gold rush in 1874. He was eventually caught and sentenced to life in prison. University students had a statue of him put in the lunchroom to honor what they have renamed the Alferd E. Packer Memorial Grill.