Nome celebrates Labor Day with bathtub, rubber duck races

Just like in 2024, residents of Nome were joined by cruise ship passengers for the Labor Day festivities. At high noon sharp, three teams lined up bathtubs festooned with streamers, ready for the Great Labor Day Bathtub Race.
Team Rota-Tub, pushing Leo Rasmussen’s old red bathtub on wheels, was made up of Captain Iza Phan and pushers Nicole Santonastaso, Truong Phan, Veronica Alviso and David O’Neill.
The next team, Tub Runners, was made up entirely of kids. Captain Quincy Foret led Theo Ventress, Mercy Ventress, June Ventress and Paige Savok to the finish line. The final team, One Hit Wonder, showed up in a tropical theme, wearing leis, Hawaiian shirts and other vacation apparel. Their captain, Siena Pederson, wore a bikini (over a baselayer, for warmth) and led pushers Matt Kam-Magruder, Aidan McCloy, Levi Pederson and Rowan Moore.
KICY has put on the race for about ten years. General Manager Patty Burchell explained the rules: each team is required to have one captain riding in the bathtub and four pushers. Prizes are awarded to first place, last place and audience pick. Despite the lack of rain during the race, it’s not a dry run. There must be water in the tub to start and there must be water in the tub when teams finish.
This year is allegedly the 50th running of the race, but no one is quite sure. Leo Rasmussen, a former mayor of Nome, started the race, but Burchell wasn’t able to confirm with him what year it actually started. “When he was mayor, he did a whole lot of things to increase the community participation, the uniqueness of Nome, things that we do that nobody else does,” said Burchell. When Rasmussen moved to Fairbanks, he asked the general manager of KICY to take on the race, and the tradition has continued.
As the clock struck noon, the racers rocketed down Front Street. The race runs from City Hall to the door of the Post Office. Within two minutes, all three teams had crossed the finish line. In first place was One Hit Wonder, followed by Rota-Tub and then Tub Runners in third.
Siena Pederson, the captain of One Hit Wonder, said that the team came together the day before when Burchell said the race was still looking for another group to participate. What did it feel like to win? “Pretty good,” she said. “I looked back and I was like, ‘Oh, we’re winning. We’re winning.”
Sports fans may recognize Siena’s brother, Levi, from Nome-Beltz basketball coverage. What’s better, winning a basketball game or the Great Labor Day Bathtub Race? “Definitely the Bathtub Race,” he said. “I think the pride of it really just gets to me.”
The Tub Runners, the all-kid team, took home the crowd favorite award, but everyone walked away with certificates and the glory of participating in Nome’s annual Great Labor Day Bathtub Race.
The tub that One Hit Wonder drove down the street might also be lucky. According to Burchell, whenever the “Crowley tub” is in the race, it usually wins. “The tub has the reputation of being a winning tub,” she said. “We get to borrow it from Crowley every year to give to a team, any team.”
Crowley tub comes with sturdy bike wheels, while the other tubs ride on smaller, fatter wagon wheels.
Whatever the pros and cons of bathtub race construction, the cheer was all in good fun. Burchell said that’s the point. “It’s just community spirit. It’s something quirky and fun to end the season,” she said. “It’s a great way to end a fun summer in Nome. Put people in a bathtub and run down Front Street. Why not?”
 
 
Rubber Duck Race
Just a few hours later, the clouds had opened up and rain was beginning to fall. That didn’t stop the small crowd gathered for Nome’s other beloved Labor Day tradition – the Rotary Club of Nome’s Duck Race fundraiser.
Three-thousand rubber duckies are released each year into the Snake River at the Bering Air parking lot to make their slow and ponderous way downstream to the finish line, about a half mile away. For weeks beforehand, the club sells tickets – $5 each, or $20 for five. Each ticket number corresponds with a duck. If your duck crosses the finish line in first, second or third, you win a cash prize. Also in the running is the Wild Duck, scooped at random from the top ten or so finishers. The money raised by selling tickets goes towards scholarships. 
Last year, the weather was so horrendous the Rotary Club opted to scoop ducks at random out of a fishing tote. This year, it was raining and gray, but the water was calm as Charlie Lean, Nicole Santonastaso, Sydney Boersma and Veronica Alviso launched into the river on a skiff, carrying precious cargo – some 3,000 ducks in bright yellows, pinks, blues and greens. As Lean piloted the skiff, the others dumped the ducks in, starting the race. There was laughter onshore from onlookers as Boersma realized one duck had not made it into the water and she chucked it after the others.
Lean said the secret to a winning duck is a duck that’s not too light. “You want it neutrally buoyant, so that it doesn’t get blown by the wind up on the bank,” he explained. “Right now, the wind’s a little slightly upstream. So, if the if the duck settles into the current, then it scoops,” he said, mimicking how the wind might scoop a duck towards the bank of the river to get tangled up among the weeds. 
He would not guess which duck would win this year. “I’m impartial,” he said.
It usually takes the ducks about a half hour to make it to the finish line near the postal annex —the ducks that make it, of course. As people watched, some of the ducks got caught in an eddy and fetched up against the far bank of the river. “It takes us three hours to collect all of them,” said Lean. He pauses. “There have been days the tide switches and… it takes hours.”
Events like the duck race aren’t just about raising money, they’re also about community through quirkiness and fun. “That is part of Nome,” said Lean. “And, our parades for a small town are noteworthy. I think that is what makes Nome.”
Rotarian Adam Lust echoed the sentiment. People in the town like to come together – this year, the club sold all 3,000 tickets, and Lust said he normally does not have trouble selling his share. “Nome loves its gambling,” he said, before correcting himself. “Nome loves supporting charitable gaming.”
Rubber Duck Race Winners:
Ryder Bolen
Phyllis Farrell
Troy Miller
Wild Duck: Tina Mertz