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

Video

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.

» LAUNCH VIDEO PLAYER

But both said they were also motivated by something deeper: a strong attachment to a fast-changing place and the fear that someday people here might not care about beauty queens or know the smell of muskrat guts.

"Ten years ago . . . there was, what, probably 15 people in Miss Outdoors. We have five people this year," Abbott said. The skinning events also have fewer participants than they did decades ago. "If we don't keep it going, then it's not going to go anywhere."

The changes here stem from the decline of the Chesapeake's crab and oyster harvests and the faltering market for muskrat pelts. Dorchester County's traditional jobs, the ones that inspired the Outdoor Show's muskrat skinning and oyster-shucking contests, have begun to dry up. Phillips's father, for instance, sold his waterman's boat and now works in an office.

At the same time, some local young people have absorbed a bit more of popular culture, which places little value on small-town pageants -- and zero on muskrat skinning.

For instance, Rhonda Aaron, a repeat women's skinning champion, recently had a female protege stop skinning. She thinks she knows why.

"Look at this," said Aaron, 54, holding up red hands after a recent evening of practice in her garage. "I have to go in and soak my hands in bleach every night to get the blood out of my fingernails."

But, if other people want out, Phillips and Abbott want in. Phillips is headed to Villa Julie College near Baltimore next year, and Abbott, a junior, is also thinking about schools outside the Eastern Shore. Phillips will study nursing; Abbott is thinking about marine biology. There's no guarantee they will be able to find jobs back here.

So while they still had time, the two wanted to dive as deep as possible into the traditions of Chesapeake marsh country -- a place where beauty queens can get their hands bloody.

"It's not weird," Phillips said. "You can be graceful and beautiful and well-poised and skin a muskrat."

To prepare, Phillips and Abbott had to practice skinning, repeating the series of cuts and yanks necessary to take off a muskrat's hide. And then they had to practice other skills that seemed to belong to a different world.

"Then you do this: Sweet. Talking. Sugar. Coated. Candy. Man . . . and then the shimmy," said pageant choreographer April Reid, leading the five contestants through a dance to Christina Aguilera's racy song, "Candyman." She was showing them a flirty gesture to punctuate every word. Then, again: "Bum, bum, bum, bum-bum. Shake a little butt," Reid said.

Finally, on Feb. 22, it was time.