Minnesota's Small City Festivals Mean Family Fun
Visitors are Welcome to Help Celebrate at These Annual Parties
Aug 8, 2009
Minnesota’s towns are noted for their festivals themed around everything from blueberries and loons to water sports and Finnish customs offer tourists, as well as residents, lots of entertainment at bargain prices.
Ethnic Festivals like Minnesota's Polkafest and Virginia's Land of the Loon Arts and Craft Festival
One of the best places to find ethnic festivals outside the Twin Cities is in Northeastern Minnesota’s Iron Range, since immigrants from over 40 countries settled the region in the late 1800s. The wealth of traditions they brought with them are recreated each year at such celebrations as the Polkafest at Chisholm’s Minnesota Discovery Center and the Land of the Loon Arts & Crafts Festival in Virginia, which incorporates some three dozen ethnic food booths.
New Ulm sways to accordion music each fall at its annual Oktoberfest.Held the first two weekends in October each year, the festival celebrates the community’s German heritage with. g local, regional, and European entertainment; German food and locally brewed beer. products at both locations. Old World Music is supplied by German Brass Bands, a choral group from New Ulm and polka bands. The Finnish American Summer Festival, held in the northeastern town of Embarrass, features ethnic food, traditional music, farmstead tours, crafts and even a boot-throwing contest.
August Pine Point Pow-Wow in Ponsford
Since Minnesota has been home to Native Americans for hundreds of years, their Pow-Wows held throughout the state offer opportunities to learn about the cultures of various tribes. Although many of these celebrations now include modern-day events such as demo derbys and mini-marathons, traditional events predominate. For example, at the August Pine Point Pow-Wow held in Ponsford, the colorful Grand Entry, traditional drums and dancing as well as native food and crafts booths are the most popular attractions.
Logging Days in Park Rapids and Turkey Days in Frazee
Many of Minnesota’s small towns are or were at one time principally dependent upon a single industry, such as lumber, water transport or a food produced in abundance. One of these fetes, Legends and Logging Days in Park Rapids, includes events such as “Chainsaw Masterpiece Carving,” and logging skills competitions as well as non-themed contests including a chili cook-off.
The town of Frazee’s Turkey Days derives from the area’s huge turkey-growing operations, but includes events such as greased-pole climbs and tractor pulls, that have nothing to do with growing the Thanksgiving birds. In neighboring Perham, the five-day Turtle Fest’s main events are the daily turtle races. Other activities include a softball tournament, car show, golf benefit and city-wide garage sales.
Northwest Water Carnival in Detroit Lakes
Annual events celebrating the Land of 10,000 Lakes’ bodies of water, vary from single-day regattas to the 10-day Northwest Water Carnival in Detroit Lakes. The more than 100 events at the Detroit Lakes carnival, which will celebrate its 75th annual year July 9-18, 2010, include beauty pageants, sand castle contests, water fights and live entertainment. Dragon boat races are the focus at other water-themed fetes in Bemidji and Grand Marais.
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