National Geographic Society

In an age of strip malls, fast food chains, and big-box stores, every small town in America looks the same. Or so it would seem if you roll down any interstate highway.

But linger and ask about local festivals, and soon you will find that the U.S. is a richly diverse country that celebrates cultures of every kind. The melting pot is chock-full of spicy ingredients.

That was the experience of two adventurous photographers, Ross McDermott and Andrew Owen, who set out to discover and document America's small, hidden, and bizarre festivals.

McDermott (left) and Owen shooting from a crane lift in Apache Junction, Arizona.

Photo © American Festivals Project

Forty thousand miles and forty festivals later, they have thirty thousand pictures and many hours of video that showcase the many ways Americans celebrate.

"We discovered that what may have started as small local festivals have become in some cases national and even international events, thanks in large part to the Internet," Owen said in an interview. "These festivals are attracting people with a shared passion or interest, and so they have become global experiences with a local flavor."

The World Beard and Mustache Competition attracts contestants from every corner of the world. In the past few years, the competition has been attended by more Americans than any other country. See more photos on The American Festivals Project's World Beard and Mustache Competition Web page.

Photo by Ross McDermott and Andrew Owen

McDermott (27) and Owen (28) are from Charlottesville, Virginia, where they met through a mutual friend. The idea to document American festivals is McDermott's, who was inspired by the cultural festivals he photographed while teaching English in Japan.

"I wondered if American festivals would be as culturally relevant as those in Japan. If I documented them, would I discover that they said something about American culture," he said.

Funded in part by the National Geographic Young Explorers Grants program, McDermott launched the "American Festivals Project."

In a truck converted to run on used vegetable oil they scrounged along the way from fast food restaurants and universities, the duo hit the festival circuit.

McDermott pumping vegetable oil from the back of a local diner in Ainsworth, Nebraska. The truck could hold 80 gallons of veggie oil and allow the team to drive over 1,000 miles before another fill-up.

Photo © American Festivals Project

"I thought we would look for the most bizarre festivals and those that were dying out. But what we found is that in most cases the festivals are alive and doing well," McDermott said. "Their dynamic has changed with the influx of many visitors, but they are doing well."

The photographers sought out festivals that seemed to focus on the more peculiar facets of the American way of life.

And so they headed for the Machine Gun Shootout, Wooly Worm Festival, Cajun Mardi Gras, Rattlesnake Roundup, Xtreme Cheerleading, Middle of Nowhere Celebration, Rainbow Gathering, Okie Noodling Competition, Lumberjack Championships, Pine Ridge Pow Wow, Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, Hick Festival, and Pole Dancing competition. What could be more American than festivals like those?

Xtreme Dance and Cheer Competition, Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin. See more photos and read about this at The American Festivals Project's Xtreme Cheerleading Web page. 

Photo by Ross McDermott and Andrew Owen

Okie Noodling Festival from American Festivals Project on Vimeo.

World's Largest Rattlesnake Roundup, Sweetwater, Texas. See more photos and read about this at The American Festivals Project's World's Largest Rattlesnake Roundup Web page.

Photo by Ross McDermott and Andrew Owen

Rainbow Gathering, Sante Fe National Forest, New Mexico. See more photos and read about this at The American Festivals Project's Rainbow Gathering Web page.  

Photo by Ross McDermott and Andrew Owen

Rainbow Gathering 2009 from American Festivals Project on Vimeo.

Pine Ridge Pow Wow, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota. See more photos and read about this at The American Festivals Project's Pine Ridge Pow Wow Web page.

Photo by Ross McDermott and Andrew Owen

Pine Ridge Pow Wow from American Festivals Project on Vimeo.

"The Machine Gun Shootout in Kentucky was an example of what we thought were going to be eccentric people shooting their guns," McDermott said. "Instead, we found people passionate about their collections, and owning and firing machine guns in a safe and educational manner."

Machine Gun Shootout in Kentucky. See more photos and read about this at The American Festivals Project's Knob Creek Machine Gun Shootout Web page. 

Photos by Ross McDermott and Andrew Owen

Every festival gave them the same impression. The participants they met were passionate people with compelling reasons for doing what they were doing, and who were very good at it.

"We discovered that we were not photographing one-off events so much as sub-cultures. The Machine Gun Shootout is a festival for the machine gun sub-culture across the U.S. And the same can be said for the other festivals," McDermott said. "These festivals are sub-cultures within the homogenous American culture."

"The Cajun Mardi Gras is not only for the local people," Owen added. "It draws old-time musicians like fiddlers, from everywhere. It's really like a gathering of tribes. These festivals are focused human gatherings."

Cajun Mardi Gras, rural Louisiana. See more photos and read about this at The American Festivals Project's Cajun Mardi Gras Web page. 

Photo by Ross McDermott and Andrew Owen

"There are strong family traditions in some of these festivals," McDermott said. "For many participants, such as at the Lumberjack Championships, there is real pride in what's been passed down through the generations, and an opportunity to show that off."

World Lumberjack Championships, Hayward, Wisconsin. See more photos and read about this at The American Festivals Project's World Lumberjack Championships Web page.

Photo by Ross McDermott and Andrew Owen

2009 World Lumberjack Competition from American Festivals Project on Vimeo.

It sounds like an idyllic vacation, traveling across America, visiting interesting festivals, meeting colorful people. But from a photographer's point of view it had challenges and was very hard work.

"Unlike photographers who have the privilege of revisiting an event to rework shots that they might have missed, we were working on a very short notice, and often had a one or two-day window to gather all our material. We would arrive and start shooting, sometimes from sunrise to dusk, in all kinds of weather and without really knowing what the event would offer," McDermott said.

They would sometimes have to spend hours looking for veggie fuel for their truck. Driving from one festival to the next could involve long overnight journeys.

Sleep happened whenever the guys had a chance. In Oklahoma, it was so hot inside the tent that McDermott decided to sleep on the concrete picnic table.

Photos © American Festivals Project

"We attended a festival in Louisiana on one day and another in Wisconsin the very next day," Owen said. "That meant we had to drive through the night. We started shooting the second we arrived, and didn't stop for 12 hours."

McDermott and Owen are mulling over several uses of their collection of images and video. They are busy with talks and planning an exhibit in Charlottesville on January 9th at The Bridge--Progressive Arts Initiative.

Are there any plans to photograph the festivals of Europe or Asia?

"Not right now," McDermott said, "we're still trying to absorb what happened to us in America."

To see more of the 30,000 photos made by Ross McDermott and Andrw Owen, please visit The American Festivals Project Web site. Prints of the photos can be be ordered.

Support the AFP! from American Festivals Project on Vimeo.

A fly that buzzed around during the time of dinosaurs is being described as a new family, genus and species of fly never before observed.

This artist's rendering of a 100-million-year old insect shows the unusual horn on its head topped by three eyes.

Image by George Poinar/Courtesy OSU

"A single, incredibly well-preserved specimen of the tiny but scary-looking fly was preserved for eternity in Burmese amber, and it had a small horn emerging from the top of its head, topped by three eyes that would have given it the ability to see predators coming," Oregon State University said in a statement about the discovery.

"No other insect ever discovered has a horn like that, and there's no animal at all with a horn that has eyes on top," said George Poinar, Jr., a professor of zoology at OSU, who announced the new species in the journal Cretaceous Research.

"It was probably a docile little creature that fed on the pollen and nectar of tiny tropical flowers," Poinar said. "But it was really bizarre looking. One of the reviewers of the study called it a monster, and I have to admit it had a face only another fly could have loved. I was thinking of making some masks based on it for Halloween."

This ancient "unicorn" fly that lived 100 million years ago in Burma has a "horn" in the center of its forehead, capped with three small eyes.

Photo by George Poinar/Courtesy OSU

The fly lived in the jungles of Myanmar and was found trapped in amber that was from 97 to 110 million years old, OSU said. "The gooey, viscous tree sap that flowed down over the fly and later turned to stone preserved its features in lifelike detail, including its strange horn topped by three functional eyes."

Strange evolutionary adaptations

"If we had seen nothing but the wings of this insect, it would have looked similar to some other flies in the family Bibionomorpha," Poinar said. "But this was near the end of the Early Cretacous when a lot of strange evolutionary adaptations were going on. Its specialized horn and eyes must have given this insect an advantage on very tiny flowers, but didn't serve as well when larger flowers evolved. So it went extinct."

Poinar named the new fly Cascoplecia insolitis--from the Latin "cascus" for old and "insolates" for strange and unusual.

The fly also had other very unusual characteristics, the study found, such as an odd-shaped antenna, unusually long legs that would have helped it crawl over flowers and extremely small vestigial mandibles that would have limited it to nibbling on very tiny particles of food.

This image of an ancient fly in amber more closely shows the strange horn on its head, topped by three eyes.

Photo by George Poinar/Courtesy OSU

Pollen grains found on the legs of the fly suggest that it primarily must have fed on flowers.

"This fly lived during the time of the dinosaurs, but also in a period when Triassic and Jurassic species were becoming extinct, modern groups were appearing and angiosperms, or flowering plants, were diversifying. Some of the characteristics of the fly were common to other families found around that time, but others were extremely different--especially the horn with eyes on top," OSU said.

The specimen found in amber was well-preserved, lacking only the rear left portion of the abdomen and a portion of the left hind leg. It's rare to find specimens with essentially a complete body as well as wings, scientists noted in the report.

The fossil came from an amber mine in the Hukawng Valley of Myanmar, first excavated in 2001.

"This 'unicorn' fly was one of the oddities of the Cretaceous world and was obviously an evolutionary dead end."

Poinar is an expert on insects and other life forms that have been preserved in amber, and has used them as clues to create detailed portraits of ancient ecosystems.

"None of the specialized body characters of Cascoplecia occurs on previously reported Cretaceous bibionids," the report concluded. "This 'unicorn' fly was one of the oddities of the Cretaceous world and was obviously an evolutionary dead end."

When it comes to meals on wheels, the black bears of Yosemite may have figured out that minivans may be vehicles that offer the best prospects for finding something to nibble.

Picture the scene: thousands of visitors camp overnight each year in California's Yosemite valley, one of the most popular U.S. national parks. Many, if not all, of the hundreds of parked cars contain food or at least a lingering whiff of snacks.

NGS photo by Dick Durrance II

Every year scores of campers report vehicles broken into by perpetually famished bears strong and determined enough to smash windows and pop doors open to get at the food within. Not even regular nocturnal patrols by park rangers seem to deter the ursine rogues.

Knowing that bears select techniques to hunt and gather food in the wild that get the best return for the energy expended, scientists wondered if bears apply a similar strategy to parked vehicles.

"The top choice of vehicle by black bears in Yosemite National Park has been the minivan."

"For a seven-year period, the top choice of vehicle by black bears in Yosemite National Park has been the minivan," says a news release by the Journal of Mammalogy, a research journal published by the American Society of Mammalogists.

"The bears seem to base this decision on 'fuel efficiency'--that is, which vehicle offers the best opportunity of finding a meal. As a result, black bears have shown a strong preference for breaking into minivans over other types of vehicles," the Journal says.

NGS photo of black bear by David Alan Harvey

An article in the October 2009 issue of the Journal of Mammalogy examines the number of vehicles, by make and model, that black bears broke into from 2001 to 2007 in Yosemite. The research was led by Stewart W. Breck of the U.S. Department of Africulture's National Wildlife Research Center.

"In all years, minivans had the largest or second largest number of break-ins by bears," the Journal said. "When the number of break-ins was compared to the numbers of each type of vehicle visiting the park in 2004-2005, only minivans were broken into at a rate higher than expected based on their availability."

Why do bears prefer minivans?
 
As humans and wildlife must increasingly coexist in closer proximity, animal populations will make use of resources associated with humans, such as livestock, trash, and pet food, the Journal explained.

"Black bears have been known to raid trash cans, break into houses and cars, and steal food from campers. In nature, black bears are selective in their foraging behavior. That same selectivity may apply when choosing from which vehicle to seek a meal."
 

There was a time when visitors in U.S. national parks regularly fed black bears from their cars, as seen in this picture. This is no longer allowed, but bears still associate people and their cars with food.

NGS photo by Andre H. Brown

Reports detailing 908 vehicles broken into by Yosemite black bears between 2001 and 2007 were reviewed. The rates of break-ins for nine categories included: minivan, 26 percent; sport-utility vehicle, 22.5 percent; small car, 17.1 percent; and sedan, 13.7 percent.

The article offers four hypotheses about why Yosemite's black bears are choosing the minivan:

1) Minivans are more likely to emit food odors, based on the fact that minivans are designed for families with children---who are more likely to spill food and drink in a vehicle.
2) Passengers of minivans are more prone to leave large amounts of food in a vehicle parked overnight, including in coolers ands grocery bags.
3) Minivans may be structurally easier to break into than other types of vehicles. Bears most often gained access to minivans by popping open a rear side window.
4) A few individual bears could be responsible for all the break-ins, and they are displaying a learned behavior for choosing minivans.
 

A black bear raids a picnic table in the Great Smoky Mountains National park.

NGS photo by George F. Mobley  

The black bear (Ursus americanus) is one of the most adaptable of all large carnivores and conflict with humans is a critical and growing management issue throughout its range, the researchers write in their article. "Understanding details of the foraging behavior of carnivores in [human] environments can help reveal specific causes of conflict, leading to better strategies for reducing availability of [human] foods and preventing conflict."
 
This work was funded by Yosemite National Park and the USDA's National Wildlife Research Center.

NGS photo by David Alan Harvey