Fur Flies at Beauty Pageant (But It's Not What You Think)

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Muskrat Queens

Two girls from Dorchester County, Md. participate in a beauty pageant and muskrat skinning competition during the 63rd Annual National Outdoor Show in Golden Hill, Md.

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"This is really the end of the world, back up five feet," one contestant's mother said.

The festival began with the muskrats -- bucktoothed marsh critters whose pelts are sold to the fur trade. Over the decades, friendly rivalries among local skinners gave birth to the World Championship Muskrat Skinning Contest, which now draws crowds of more than 1,000.

Its rules are simple: "Fastest time, clean 'rat," locals say, meaning that the hides can't be nicked or torn as they're removed. The pelts are usually taken home and sold by the skinners; the carcasses are sometimes stewed with liberal amounts of sage and eaten. Scientists do not believe the event presents a threat to the local muskrat population.

For 54 years, the skinning contest has also been accompanied by a beauty contest.

No one here thinks that's odd.

"It's not like, 'Oh my God, it's a beauty pageant!' 'Oh my God, they're skinning muskrats!' " said Tiffany Brittingham, 22, a sixth-grade science teacher. "It's just a norm."

Still, for decades, it wasn't the norm for women to do both. They were pageant people or skinning people. Then came Brittingham in 2003.

"She skinned a muskrat in full makeup and sparkly earrings," said Amy Nicholson, a New York-based filmmaker who shot a documentary, "Muskrat Lovely," during the 2004 pageant, when Brittingham did the same thing. "You kind of can't believe it's actually happening."

In 2005, when she walked out for the talent portion of the pageant with a muskrat thrown over her shoulder, a man in the audience yelled above the cheers, "I want to marry you!"

On that third try, Brittingham won.

This year, both Phillips and Dakota Abbott, 16, entered both the beauty contest and the skinning competition. Phillips also chose to skin during the pageant's talent portion.

"I'll be honest," she said. "I can't sing, I can't dance and I don't play any musical instruments." So it had to be muskrats.