Festival of the Kekionga

Kekionga Highlights Our Heritage - 2008

The 6th annual Kekionga Festival took place August 22 – 24 with great weather, great participants and a great crowd. Over thirty reenactors set-up camp behind Riverside Center to demonstrate the lifestyle of frontier trapper and traders.

The Kekionga Festival is a celebration of our history and culture. With this goal in mind artisans, storytellers, reenactors gather to recreate the days of 1840 Indiana. A woodland Indian lodge and a Shoshone storyteller connected the pioneers with the native residents.

New at Kekionga 2008 was Education Day. Some 300 students visited the encampment and saw demonstrations of life on the Indiana frontier, curia 1940. The students were especially fascinated by the hourly firing of a replica Civil War cannon. An enlarged Education Day will take place on August 21, 2009.

On Saturday participants arrived early in anticipation of a large crowd of visitors. Nationally known storyteller Bob Sander crafted shared tall tales and folk stories

Other exciting events included a bat exhibit by “Going Batty” and live owls and a redtail hawk exhibited by the raptor rehabilitation center. The Artifacts Roadshow also brought much interest to the Festival.

The next Kekionga Festival will take place at Riverside Center August 21-23, 2009. Plan now to attend!