By Michelle McAfee- Wrangell Mountains Center

The Tall Tales storytelling competition in McCarthy has been going for over thirty years. Local folks took the stage at the Golden Saloon, grabbed the mic, and told tales of mountain mishaps, town shenanigans, ghost stories, and grand adventures. Some stories were true. Others were half-true. And occasionally, a storyteller would spin a far-out tale so real the audience couldn’t tell if it was fact or fiction.

In 2020 when the pandemic hit, the Wrangell Mountains Center ventured to hold an online Tall Tales instead of canceling this special event. And it was wildly successful. People from across the country in states like Maine, North Carolina, Colorado, and as far away as New Zealand watched the storytellers perform online. 

This experiment sparked the idea to make Tall Tales a storytelling festival. Two events were held in person this summer—one at the Golden Saloon and the other at the Old Hardware Store. The top four contenders from those venues will compete in the Grand Finale Winners’ Showcase online Sunday, October 10th at 6 pm.

The event attracts locals and travelers, professional performers, and people who have never performed before. The winning storyteller at the Golden Saloon was Michael Peré. It was Michael's first time in a storytelling competition, but he’s been telling stories for years. He performed in theatre through high school and loved it so much he studied it in college, graduating with a BFA in Musical Theatre in 2018. He has traveled the country and performed fourteen shows, including seven tours.

Michael’s enthusiasm lights up the room, “For me [storytelling] is all about making people laugh! I’ve always used stories and theatre as a way to help audiences forget the heavy parts of life. It’s great to be able to walk into a space with stories and let go of things. For a brief time, we can enter an entirely new world and focus on the joy, adventures, and laughs that only stories can bring!”

Maya Heubner was the runner-up storyteller at the Golden Saloon. She has no previous experience telling stories in a competition, but her job as an interpretive ranger for Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve overlaps with storytelling in creating a narrative for ranger programs. She used to be very nervous about public speaking and told me that forcing herself to perform music at McCarthy’s Open Mic nights and becoming a ranger helped her get over her stage fright.

I asked Maya: What draws her to storytelling?

“I like that a good story can be meaningful and funny at the same time, and it can allow the audience to get inside someone else’s head for a while, maybe even finding similar thoughts to their own. It’s also fascinating to think about how different people experiencing the same thing may have totally different stories about the same event.”

The winning storyteller at the Old Hardware Store event was Joseph Boots-Ebenfield. Tall Tales was Joey’s first time in Alaska and telling a story on stage in front of a crowd. He came to McCarthy this summer by way of White River Junction, Vermont, where he was working on a biofuel-related enzyme engineering project.

“I think ultimately, passing stories around is one of the features that makes humans human. The myths that form the basis of all our ideologies, contemporary or otherwise, all started as stories passed from person to person. It wouldn’t be too hard to argue that storytelling, with all its exaggeration, fluidity, and subjectivity, is the only way we can reproduce meaningful information.” Storytelling is about more than performance for Joseph.

Scott Cook was the runner-up at the Old Hardware Store, and Tall Tales was also his first experience in a storytelling competition. I asked him what prompted him to tell his winning story, “I thought it was humorous, and it had an Alaskan connection.” 

You can watch these storytellers compete in the Tall Tales Winner’s Showcase Sunday, October 10th at 6 pm, online at www.donorbox.org/tall-tales-2021. 

Yes, fresh snow is already on the ground, and summer is in the rearview mirror of our minds. But tuck this little seed under the blanket of next season’s dreams: you could be the winner of next year’s Tall Tales storytelling competition. 

What story will you tell?

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