As she rode her bike toward me, I noticed writing on her shirt and so naturally I tried to read it. But as she pedaled closer, two things became clear. One, she was wearing a cape which flapped happily in the breeze. Two, the cape was the only thing she was wearing. The writing was, in fact, written on her bare chest.
I certainly wasn’t in Kansas anymore; I was definitely at the Winnipeg Folk Festival.
The Winnipeg Folk Festival is many things. It is a four day (and night) outdoor concert with nine stages of music ranging from indie to bluegrass to Syrian electro-pop. It is a variety of vendors including local, vegetarian, and ethnic options, all of which serve their food on reusable plates. It is a chance to hear well known acts such as Arlo Guthrie and Edward Sharpe as well as discover rising stars like Quebec’s sister-duo Les sueurs Boulay. And it is a place where my body and soul breathes easy each time I enter through the main gates, a place where barefoot toddlers run around giddily beside grandparent baby boomers and hip twenty somethings and teens who—respectfully, away from others on the outskirts of the festival—smoke cannabis in huddled circles.
That describes my experience the first five times I attended this festival. But in 2015 I learned there is a whole other side of the festival that I knew little about. A place so vibrant and intoxicating in its lure that one festival goer I met this year, on the last day of the fest, had only made it into the festival grounds that last day. He had happily spent the entire festival until then in the festival campground.
It is true I camped my first five years at a campsite within Birds Hill, the provincial park where the festival is located. There I had a private spot for my car and tent, my own picnic table, and easy access to a shower building. Sometimes at night I would hear drums beating from two miles away—from the festival campground—and it would annoy me at five in the morning. But otherwise at the end of the day I was mostly cut off from the festival and festival goers, as I sat around my campfire hoping to see the Northern Lights come out and play (which they did two of the years I spent at the fest).
This year, though, I camped at the festival campground, which is right across the street from the festival itself. We all arrived the day before the fest to set up, and quickly a tent city emerged from the woods and prairie. We had our own grocery and convenience store, our own pizza truck, and a co-op campers could go to get bikes and equipment repaired. Then there were the “shelters” constructed of reclaimed materials. One notable example is an open-air gathering place filled with random instruments and topped with a disco ball. People gather here to jam and sing at all hours of the night and day. Another example is the costume library. Inside are boxes of wedding dresses and funky suits and angel wings and pasties. Fest goers wear these costumes around the grounds and into the festival itself. There is also a vintage tattoo shelter (they are stamped on you) and a bar (where I saw no booze but did see people smoking cannabis). These community-energizing places are staffed by volunteers and no money is exchanged.
By day, the festival campground is a mixture of hungover hippies scurrying to attend a yoga session and teens on their bikes heading across to hear the music. But at night the place really comes to life. Tents and yurts are illuminated with a variety of lights making it a striking city to behold. People roam around from neighborhood to neighborhood. I stop at one area where they are playing music around a campfire. We are all drawn in by the fiddler whose fiddle and bow are illuminated with Christmas lights.
As an avid fitness dork, I religiously wore my Up fitness tracker, and put on about 100,000 steps during my five days in Birds Hill Park. By day I would wander from stage to stage enjoying musical groups I’d never heard of. By night I would wander the campground marveling at the place and making new friends.
On Sunday, the last night of the festival, a huge storm rolled through swamping the fest grounds. Many of the festival campers pulled out early. Slowly I walked back to my tent feeling melancholy that the experience was over. Nearly to my tent, though, I passed a fire with several silhouetted people around it. I slowed to listen to the music they were making, and then one of them called me over. Boxed wine was shared. A guitar was put into my hands. I played and sung a tune by Blessid Union of Souls. “I believe,” I sang, “love is the answer. I believe that love will find a way.”
Together this group of strangers and I sang some more, enjoyed some more wine, and parted with hugs. It was a fitting end to an amazing experience, one that doesn’t really end, but lives on in my heart and in my plans to bring my newborn children here just as soon as they are old enough to walk and run around. I cannot wait to introduce them to the fest, where they can let the music and the spirit of the place blow them around from wonder to wonder.