Dorpat Complicit in Ivar Scandal

In our imagination, Paul Dorpat, Wallingford historian and Santa-look-alike, sits in a squeaky, sagging wooden office chair, looking across an overflowing, stained desk at a man in a stetson hat and a crisp, brown suit. A lazy fan eavesdrops from above, and the whole room is inexplicably washed in sepia.

“These documents are phonier than a three dollar bill,” Dorpat croaks, tossing a manila envelope onto the desk.

The man in the suit doesn’t blink, just stares Dorpat stony-faced in the eye. “Yeah, I know that. I made ’em.” He pauses. “So, you in?”

A fly buzzes. Through the window a woman can be heard scolding her dog. Finally, a slow smile breaks through Dorpat’s bushy white beard.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m in.”

Anyway, that’s the way we imagine it. According to the Seattle Times, the meeting actually happened at Ivar’s Salmon House:

Dorpat says that over lunch at the Salmon House, Donegan showed him the fake documents. The documents, says Dorpat, “were done brilliantly, but to my experienced eyes, within 20 seconds I figured they were a little too polished.”

He decided to go along. He and Donegan say Dorpat was not paid for his part.

“I became part of the theater,” says Dorpat. “It was very much in the spirit of Ivar Haglund.”

What’s all this about?

Apparently, a few months ago, Ivar’s Salmon House claimed to have found documents in the private collection of the late Ivar Haglund, its quirky founder, that described the location of several underwater billboards put up in the 1950’s, signs put up for divers to see with messages like “Ivar’s Chowder. Worth surfacing for. 75¢ a cup.”

Off they went: they searched for them, found them, raised them from the deep and launched an expensive advertising campaign to spread the word of their archaeological find.

Except, as has previously been alluded, the whole thing was made up. A prank. The documents were created on a computer, and the billboards manufactured in the 21st century.

And Wallingford’s own Paul Dorpat was a prime prankster, providing “legitimate” 3rd party confirmation of the authenticity of the find. Again, from the Times:

Dorpat on Wednesday wrote down his thoughts about the hoax. He said, in part: “In my now long life — I turned 71 imagine! — I have been involved in a few pranks and public practical jokes even without Ivar or Ivar’s. …

“When I was first shown the ‘evidence’ I was a believer — for a moment — but then soon understood its deeper or submarine significance. Laid before me was the first really Ivaresque example — since his passing in 1985 — of a public promotion by Ivar’s built on a grand fiction.

“It is very much in Ivar’s way and I am, frankly, already disappointed that it has been ‘revealed’ or ‘outed.’ … This was romance, a delightful fiction to which we readily and willingly suspended our disbelief or we are pestering scrooges.”

Most seem amused, although the Times is apparently taking Dorpat’s deception somewhat gravely, as he is a frequent contributing journalist:

Times Executive Editor David Boardman says that while he can appreciate the initiative behind the marketing ploy and had suspected it was a hoax, he was distressed that Dorpat, whose “Now & Then” column has appeared in the newspaper’s Pacific Northwest magazine since 1982, would lie to a Times reporter.

Dorpat’s continued freelance relationship with the paper is “under review,” Boardman says.

Don’t let ’em get to you Paul. Keep clam.

(Thanks Steve W. for the tip!)