As part of Haines’ Snow Dragon at the annual community holiday celebration Saturday, I had the time of my life, but couldn’t wait for the parade to be over.

“It would be catastrophic to fall,” said Joe Parnell, who once again was at the front of the dragon. “It’s harder than it looks. The head is heavy.”

Each step on an icy Main Street was another chance to create a domino effect that would bring down my fellow dragon trotters, making us look like some failed meeting of the Ku Klux Klan.

I had first read about the Snow Dragon before my October move to Haines from Iowa, in Heather Lende’s first book, “If You Lived Here, I’d Know Your Name.”

“The holidays are more about having fun than buying things,” Lende wrote. “And it simply wouldn’t be Christmas without the parade, and we couldn’t call it a parade without the Snow Dragon.”

She described the parade staple as a “twenty-three-foot-long dragon … made of heavy plastic oil drums, cleaned and cut in half, with holes for our necks.”

“Foam fins cover our heads, completing the serpentine effect but making us legally blind,” Lende wrote.

That means communication is key, since it’s difficult to anticipate a change in elevation when you can’t even see your boots.

When I showed up at the Haines School for parade preparations, Lende provided tips as a survivor of the parade.

“No texting while dragoning,” she warned, after yet another cell phone ring.

I found a spot in the middle of the dragon that is designed for eight people. Russell Clark, 15, handled the responsibilities of the dragon’s tail.

“I had to do the most moving, because they were trying to get like a snake, so I had to move the most and had to kind of wag the tail, and people thought that was funny,” Clark said after our trip up and down Main Street.

My plan had been to simply shuffle, but dragon handler Annette Smith instructed us to “Trot!” soon after we passed the Elks Lodge at the start of the 4:30 p.m. parade.

The dragon roared after repeated taunts from firecrackers, and the weight grew a bit more uncomfortable.

“I was the second vertebrae, and I held the battery to control the lights, I believe, on the eyes,” said Brandon Haxton, 17. “My shoulders are giant, and those tubs are not very big.”

Zak Little, 17, hauled the stereo system and said he preferred his role “last year, because I didn’t have to carry anything.”

Judy Heinmiller ran alongside the beast and handed out sparklers.

“This is my sixth year,” Heinmiller said. “The first year, I was in the dragon. That’s a lot of work.”

She credited the “highly skilled” dragon team for navigating the parade route without taking a tumble.

“This is our dragon,” Heinmiller said. “He’s over 20 now.”

We turned around at the bank, and the screams and camera flashes continued. The dragon was one big adrenaline rush.

Still, I had never been happier to walk into a school than when I ducked through the door at the end of the parade. Catastrophe had been averted.

I asked David Lockerman, 16, if I had been a hindrance during the parade as I trudged behind him, and he politely responded, “I was, too.” Lockerman had towered over me, making the dragon somewhat of a hunchback.

First-time dragon viewer Linda Moser, though, was impressed. She is a recent arrival from California and called Haines “the best town in the world.” Moser was quick to embrace the Snow Dragon tradition.

“I loved him,” she said. “He was awesome.”