I’m a little behind on this one, but a week ago, a large part of Homer participated in an annual Burning Basket celebration on the Spit. Since 2004, Homer’s residents have spent six days constructing a giant ten foot basket out of natural materials and plants.

People can write sentiments or personal notes and place them inside, or weave them into the outside structure. On the seventh day, the basket is given to the community, is set ablaze, and the thoughts and wishes of this quint town are released into the atmosphere.

Being that I had nothing else to do, the motivating factor for most of my outings,  I went. There was a drum circle, fire dancers, hot air balloon lanterns, and of course, a leather clad man with a feather poking out of his rainbow hat. You can’t get much better than that unless there was a dancing midget in a polar bear outfit. Burning Basket people, get on this.

I have to admit, it was a bit more entertaining than I expected (and quite nice having a massive fire on a cold and windy evening). However, as usual in this town, the event was mainly populated with a much older demographic, paired with the accompanying young kids. With my brothers, myself and maybe two other people aged 16-30, we were definitely a minority. Not that there’s anything wrong with that,  of course I wouldn’t complain if there were a couple more hot babes my age that just happen to need a buff, burly man to keep them warm.

Here are several photos I took from the burning.

For more info check out the Burning Basket Project facebook page.