Thursday, May 31st, 2007  »  Family Fun

A feast of festivals

You can find a festival somewhere in the Midwest in any month of the year. But summer is the time for short pants and soft shoes—when the days are warm and the daylight lasts well into the night. It’s the perfect time to explore. So let’s check out a few of the many festivals that surround us this time of the year.

Any coverage of Michigan’s summer festivals would be incomplete without a mention of one of the granddaddies of them all—Traverse City’s National Cherry Festival. From July 7-15, 2007, TC will host upwards of 500,000 visitors at a gala hailed several times by USA Today as one of its Top Ten Events in the U.S. The week-long festival pours an estimated $26,000,000 into the local economy and treats visitors to more than 150 events, half of which are free to the public.

Michigan grows about 75% of the 650 million pounds of tart and sweet cherries produced annually in the United States. Early settlers brought cherries here in the 1600s, and growers planted the first commercial tart cherry orchards in Michigan in 1893. The modern-day cherry festival began in 1926. For more information about the U.S. cherry industry, check out www.cherrymkt.org. And to learn more about the cherry festival, visit www.cherryfestival.org or call 800/968-3380.

Mackinaw City, Michigan, hosts two unusual festivals this summer. The Conkling Heritage Park on the waterfront hosts the Mackinaw Kite Festival June 16 and 17. If you have ever caught a ferry to Mackinaw Island near this site, you have probably seen colorful kites flying high over the water. For more details, call 231/436-8051. Also in Mackinaw City from August 10-12 is the International Ironworkers Festival which annually attracts ironworkers from all over the U. S. and Canada and pits them against each other in some light-hearted competition. Sorry, but you have to be a card-carrying ironworker or retiree to compete, but there’s plenty for the visitor to see and do. Headquarters for the festival is the Mackinaw City high school. To learn more, visit www.ironfest.com or call 269/962-8511.

Milwaukee has a wonderful festival site along its waterfront and during the summer, it hosts the Lakefront Festival of the Arts, Summerfest, RiverSplash, the Polish Fest, the Asian Moon Festival, Fiesta Italiana and the German Fest. For details, check out www.milwaukee.org or call 800/554-1448.

What would summer be without burgers, right? That must surely be the question  on the minds of the folks hosting the National Hamburger Festival in Akron, Ohio, July 20-21. The event features more than two dozen restaurants from across the country serving more than 50 kinds of burgers. Live music and, yes, there is a hamburger-eating contest. Call 716/565-4141, ext. 12 or visit www.hamburgerfestial.com.

Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is the site of the Fairy Tale Festival on June 24, 2007. This is an annual celebration of storytelling at Ushers Ferry Historic Village. Call 319/286-5763 or visit www.ufhv.com for details. If you come to Stillwater, Minnesota, July 19-22, you can get in on the annual Lumberjack Days. It features the Stihl Timbersports Series Championships as seen on ESPN. Call 651/430-2306 or visit www.lumberjackdays.com. For summer events in Indianapolis, call 800/323-4639 or visit www.indy.org. For the Windy City’s goings-on, log on to www.choosechicago.org.

 

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