Forest Fair

Forest Fair.  So this is a new concept to me.  Shortly after landing in Alaska, Girdwood residents Sharon and Dave took me on a tour of their home town.  Sharon was already looking forward to the annual Forest Fair.  "What's that?" I asked.  She explained that it's a weekend affair, a bit of an Alaska Lollapalooza if you will, with hippies, in the woods, and sometimes ice cream eating bears and mushroom eating humans, bound to be an interesting mix.

A few months passed, and then it was time...Forest Fair, 2015...taking place 4th of July weekend.

photo by Sharon Vernon

Forest Fair is a gathering.  There are little tents everywhere, and people come to sell their crafts.  There are food tents....even a Canadian Food tent, although I am not sure how Canadian corn fritters are.  I went with good old American comfort food...mac and cheese.  They gave me two choices "Small, or large, but only large comes with the goodness."  "Goodness?" I asked.  "Yeah, you don't get goodness with the small."  So I went with the goodness, assuming it would be a layer of baked cheese.  Turns out goodness in America means topped with a sliced hot dog and handful of crushed potato chips.  Oh well...when in Rome....

Forest Fair is also about music.  There are several stages, the main one has music playing all day and late into the evening.  The smaller stages had a lot of hula hooping, or is it hula hoopery, and other shenanignas going oh.  There was good music.  Local bands, travelling bands, but no big rockstars...the mainstream is taboo at Forest Fair, so they aren't flying in trendy headliners...but again I say there was some darn good music.

Sharon volunteers as a DJ at the Girdwood Radio Station,  88.9 Keul FM is the the local bandwidth, and they play everything from bluegrass to death metal...tune in if you are near Girdwood while travelling on the Seward Highway.

88.9 Keul FM, Girdwood's Station -- photo by Sharon Vernon

When my coworkers asked about my weekend plans, I said I was going to hippiefest, since Sharon said Girdwood is a hippie town.  I was mostly kidding.  But...it really is kind of a hippie fest.  There was tie dye and bright colors, some good old hippie mantras like this one on the sign below

photo by Sharon Vernon

And some good old hippie ideals like this one!  In the spirit of sharing and and hippie neighbourliness, Sharon handed me her fancy camera, since I left mine in the car when I saw it was going to be raining all day.

Photo by Sharon Vernon

Sharon also shared most of the photos for the blog today....the signs are all not only her camera, but her eye...capturing the ideals of Forest Fair Folk.  Speaking of the Forest Fair Folk, now THAT's a story for another day.  Hopefully tomorrow