Port Oneida Fair

Posts

Port Oneida Fair sees decline in visitors; final fair scheduled for early August

For more than two decades, the Port Oneida Fair during the first weekend in August has stood out as a memorable part of the Leelanau summer experience. However, the Sun reported in late June that this year’s event, Aug. 7-8, will be the final Port Oneida Fair. Public attendance at the Port Oneida Fair peaked at 4,392 visitors in 2012, according to the National Lakeshore’s count. Only once since then has the number topped 4,000 (4,140 showed in 2017). In fact, the tally dipped below 3,000 after 2019 and never rebounded. According to Park metrics, only 2,000 attended last year’s fair—less than half of the 2012 peak.

Read more
/by

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore announces final Port Oneida Fair

,

The annual Port Oneida Fair will be held for the last time on August 7-8 in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore’s Port Oneida Rural Historic District. For more than two decades, the Fair has been celebrating the rich cultural heritage and traditions of the late 1800s and early 1900s of the area. This summer, as the nation commemorates its 250th anniversary, the fair will be “Celebrating the Threads of a Nation” in a theme that will give visitors the opportunity to reflect on the places and people of our shared history.

Read more
/by

Your Sleeping Bear Dunes experience this year may feel very different

,

UPDATE (March 12): The National Park Service once again has the green light to hire seasonal workers, but the late start has hampered the ability of Sleeping Bear Dunes to populate its seasonal roster. As of Glen Arbor Sun press time, approximately 80 percent of the National Lakeshore’s more than 100 seasonal positions remained vacant. The federal government chaos and the inability of seasonals from outside the area to find housing has prompted a slew of declines from candidates who were suddenly called and offered seasonal positions in March. Sleeping Bear Dunes staff have been paralyzed in other ways, too. Government-issued credit cards used by Park staff are frozen. They can’t buy ammunition or ranger supplies; they can’t even buy toilet paper for outhouses at hiking trails.

Read more
/by

Port Oneida Fair marries old with new

Everything old is new again. That’s not simply a cute quote or the title of a song—it’s what happens every year at the Port Oneida Fair. Haying the fields with horses. Making soap, churning butter, spinning fibers. Wood cutting with huge cross-cut saws (try it yourself). People dressed in turn-of-the-century garb (19th to 20th century, that is). Each August, amid the pastoral setting of meadows, maples, barns, farmhouses, and corncribs, the Port Oneida Rural Historic District awakens from its peaceful slumber. The district comes alive with activity true to the period when it was a community of robust farms.

Read more
/by

Exciting changes coming to the Port Oneida Fair

Mark your calendar for the 2024 Port Oneida Fair at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore on Friday and Saturday, August 9-10, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Each August, amid the pastoral setting of meadows, maples, barns, farmhouses, and corncribs, the Port Oneida Rural Historic District awakens from its peaceful slumber. The district comes alive with activity true to the period when it was a community of robust farms. Visitors are invited to step back in time to experience life as it was in the late 1800s and early 1900s. 

Read more
/by

Travel back in time at Port Oneida Fair

History will come alive Friday and Saturday, August 11-12, at the Port Oneida Fair in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore with demonstrations, food, and family activities at six different sites within the Port Oneida Rural Historic District.

Read more
/by

Port Oneida Fair features plays by Anne-Marie Oomen

,

Prolific local poet, memoirist, essayist and playwright Anne-Marie Oomen creates an enduring sense of place and history. From her memoirs about growing up in Oceana County (100 miles south of Leelanau), to poems that capture the magic of the Sleeping Bear Dunes and the western Michigan lakeshore, to history plays that re-create local characters and bygone times, Oomen’s work is always infused with images of the hills and the forests, the barns and the orchards, and the dirt and the compost of her native land. This summer two of Oomen’s history pieces will be performed as part of the Port Oneida Fair, sponsored by Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear and the Port Oneida Fair Committee with a grant from the Michigan Humanities Council.

Read more
/by

Port Oneida Fair returns to Sleeping Bear Dunes

The Port Oneida Fair returns to the Port Oneida Rural Historic District of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore on Friday and Saturday, August 12-13, following a two-year COVID-19 hiatus. Beginning at 10 a.m. each day, and running until 4 p.m., visitors are invited to step back in time to actively experience life as it was in this once active community of robust farms of the late 1800s and early 1900s. The fair promotes the preservation of rural traditional skills, crafts, landscapes, and communities of the Upper Great Lakes Region through education and artistic expression.

Read more
/by

Park holds Port Oneida Sampler instead of Fair

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore has canceled the Port Oneida Fair this year (it was also canceled in 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic). Instead, the Park invites the public to a Port Oneida Sampler, which will be held on four consecutive Wednesday afternoons in August. On each day, one of the Port Oneida farms will open a barn or house for one-way traffic and tours and may have a demonstrator on site.

Read more
/by

Glen Arbor Fourth of July parade, Dune Climb concert, Manitou Music concerts, Port Oneida Fair canceled

The coronavirus pandemic and need for social distancing has prompted the cancelation of this year’s Glen Arbor Fourth of July parade, the Sleeping Bear Dune Climb concert, the Manitou Music concert series, and the Port Oneida Fair.

Read more
/by