For younger cowpokes: Alaska Rodeo’s Bear Paw Junior Rodeo

Updated: July 16, 2018 Published: July 15, 2018

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Austin Rader is thrown from his steer during the steer riding competition at the Alaska Rodeo’s Junior Rodeo during the Bear Paw Festival in Eagle River, AK on Friday, July 13, 2018. (Bob Hallinen / ADN)

The competition was spirited, tough at times and fun above all for the cowgirls and cowboys in the Alaska Rodeo's Junior Rodeo on Friday during the Bear Paw Festival in Eagle River.

Stick barrel racing is for the tiniest cowpokes: Instead of racing around barrels on a horse, children ride a hobby horse.

The goat ribbon pull went on even with the absence of a goat to hold the ribbons. (A roping dummy stood in for the goat.) In the event, competitors race their horses the length of the arena, dismount, grab a ribbon off the roping dummy and hot-foot it back to the start line, then go get their horse — which sometimes followed them back and at other times wandered off.

Steer riding is just like bull riding, except the steers are smaller than the bulls in the adult rodeos and lack horns. But the ground is just as hard when riders are thrown off.

Bob Hallinen

Bob Hallinen has been a photojournalist in Alaska since the 1980s and has traveled extensively all over the state. He retired from the ADN in November 2018 after 33 years at the newspaper.