Events - Part 21

 Smukfest Canoe Race

Smukfest is an annual music festival in Denmark.  No, it's not a smut fest.  "Smuk" means beautiful in Danish (and it's pronounced to rhyme with "book").  It's called "Danmarks Smukkeste Festival," or Denmark's most beautiful festival.

But today we're not covering it as a music festival.  Rather, we're looking at a nude event that happens at the annual festival, Kaspers Kanoræs or Casper's Canoe Race.

The race is for teams of two.  They must be naked, though they can wear shoes or boots.  Women have occasionally competed, but it's usually all men.  In 2017 there were four teams.  Above are teams 1 and 2.

And here are teams 3 and 4.

The race starts with a drinking contest.  Each team member has to chug a bottle of beer as fast as possible.  Meanwhile, the photographer here is zeroing in on a feature of interest.

After drinking the beer, each team has to assemble and disassemble a tent on the beach, and then drag the tent into their canoe.  Then they race the canoes around a course on the lake.

Returning, they have to drag the tent back to its spot on the beach.  Then they have to chug a small bottle of Underberg digestive bitters (above).  The first team to finish wins the race.

Here are excerpts from a video of the 2017 race.  It's in Danish, but you can see what's going on.  First we see the teams strutting into the competition.  In the beer drinking, team 4 got an early lead, but then their canoe capsized.  Team 2 took the lead and won the race.  An account of the race said that they won "two beautiful party bracelets for next year."

We end with this shot of contestants embracing.  Although it's smuk, not smut, this guy seems interested in smut.  Written on his companion is "Du har set mig,", which means "You have seen me."  We certainly have.