The 65th Annual National Outdoor Show
By Andrew Keatts
The pageantry of competitive muskrat skinning at Dorchester County’s National Outdoor Show
Ronnie Robbins kneels on stage with a four-inch blade in hand. Rodent carcass in front of him, he grasps its pelt and separates it from the pinkish flesh beneath. An official hovers over him, thumb poised over the button of a stopwatch.
His hands caked in blood, Robbins’ muscles take over, familiar with the task he’s done countless times during his life as a trapper in southern Dorchester County. As he begins skinning his fifth muskrat, the crowd, packed against each wall of the school gymnasium, recognizes that an upset is taking place: Robbins is on his way to becoming the 54th World Champion Muskrat Skinner.
The previous evening, the same crowd sat in the same gym as local teenage girls competed for the crown of Miss Outdoors. The Miss Outdoors Pageant is similar enough to other small-town beauty pageants, except, of course, for its association with the rest of the National Outdoor Show. But here, the improbable pairing of muskrat skinning and beauty pageants doesn’t strike anyone as incongruous.
At the first National Outdoor Show in 1938, George North became the first World Champion Muskrat Skinner. A women’s championship event was held for the first time in 1940 but was forced to take a hiatus from 1942–1945 due to World War II. It resumed in 1946 and has continued without interruption ever since. The Miss Outdoors Pageant was introduced in 1954 and has always shared top billing with the skinning contest.
In 1953, Elihu Abbott became the first member of Elliott Island’s Abbott family to win the muskrat skinning competition. Five decades later, the Abbott family still dominates this event.
Over the years, six Abbotts—Elihu, Ted, James, Wylie, Sr., Wylie, Jr., and Jason—have won 41 out of 56 championships. From 1977 through 1993, either Wylie Sr., Wylie, Jr., or Ted won the competition—until Robbins broke their winning streak and claimed his first title in 1994. North, that first champion back in ‘38, was Elihu’s maternal grandfather. And in 2008, Elihu’s granddaughter, Dakota, was named Miss Outdoors. “The only chance I’ve got to win is when one of them Abbott boys messes up,” says Robbins.
Event organizer Buddy Oberender of Bishops Head, who’s a working waterman in the summer and trapper in the winter, says this annual show serves as a reminder of the way things used to be. “The whole show’s about promoting the heritage of the area,” he explains. “As time goes by, you see more people getting away from trapping. It’s hard work; you gotta like what you do to stay with it.”
The people here have lived off the land and its serpentine waterways dating back to the Native Americans, long before the arrival of settlers. Oberender says the event is instrumental in preserving the traditions of the local residents who have relied on natural resources for survival, whether through fishing, trapping, logging, or oystering.
Besides Miss Outdoors, a Little Miss and Little Mr. Outdoors are also crowned. Other contests and demonstrations during the weekend include nutria and raccoon skinning, oyster shucking, log sawing, duck carving, muskrat cooking, and goose and turkey calling. The queen of the Fur & Wildlife Festival, held every year in Cameron Parish, Louisiana, also makes an appearance. In turn, Miss Outdoors represents Dorchester County each January at the Fur & Wildlife Festival.
Robbins started competing in the skinning competition 15 years ago because he thought his years of trapping had made him a pretty fast skinner. He says that people from the area like seeing all the different events that relate to the area’s varied ways of life. “The beauty pageant, the log sawing—people like all that stuff,” he says. “There are all kinds of different things going on; you can’t help but see something you like.”
Patricia Hernandez, whose daughter, Chelsie, was a pageant contestant last year, respectfully disagrees: “The boys have their muskrat skinning,” she says. “But it’s all about the pageant.”
Muskrat Lovely
For those raised in the area, the National Outdoor Show needs no introduction. But in recent years, the event’s notoriety has spread outside the swamps of Blackwater. In addition to a feature story that ran on the front page of the Washington Post two years ago and radio reports that have been broadcast as far away as Houston, Chicago, and the Netherlands, the show was also the subject of Muskrat Lovely, a documentary by New York filmmaker and Baltimore native Amy Nicholson. It made the rounds of the independent film festival circuit in 2006 and 2007, and was subsequently broadcast on PBS as part of the Emmy Award-winning series “Independent Lens.”
The film documents the 2004 Miss Outdoors Pageant, then celebrating its 50th anniversary. Though Nicholson was initially inspired by the seemingly odd pairing of a beauty pageant and a muskrat-skinning competition, she eventually focused her film on the eight contestants as they prepared and then competed for the title of Miss Outdoors.
She also provides context by delving into the landscapes, traditions, and people of southern Dorchester County. “Most people haven’t heard of a muskrat, let alone muskrat skinning, let alone a world championship of muskrat skinning, so that’s interesting in its own right,” Nicholson says. “Then I heard about the pageant…I knew it was perfect because of the unusual combination [and] also because of the close-knit community that’s central to the event. I thought it was important to show something like that, because it’s so rare.”
Once she came to the area and began filming, Nicholson says she fell in love with the girls, the organizers, and the community as a whole. She knew she had found the right topic. “I was making homage to the community,” she says.
The resulting film is both sincere and funny, thanks primarily to the subjects, who are full of honesty but don’t take anything too seriously. Though she plays many moments for laughs, Nicholson was careful not to lampoon anyone. “People outside the community probably came in thinking it would be such a laugh due to the subject matter, but I intended for them to come away with a very different message than they intended,” she says. “I hope in the end it comes out that this is as valid, if not more valid, than any other way of life.”
The Skinny
The 65th Annual National Outdoor Show
South Dorchester Pre-K-8 School
Church Creek, MD 21622
410-397-8535
Friday, February 26, 5–10 p.m.
Miss Outdoors Pageant and muskrat skinning semi-finals
Saturday, February 27, 10:30 a.m.–10 p.m.
All other competitions and demonstrations
For a full schedule of events, visit
Nationaloutdoorshow.com.
Visit
Muskratlovely.com for more information on the documentary film, Muskrat Lovely.
Tags:
muskrat skinning
eastern shore heritage
national outdoor show
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