Mountain State Forest Festival expects 75,000 guests through weekend in Elkins
Oct. 2—ELKINS — The Mountain State Forest Festival kicked off this week in Elkins, embodying West Virginia's relationship to the natural beauty and timber that are part of the state. The festival runs through next Sunday, Oct. 8.
"The Mountain State Forest Festival is the oldest and largest festival in the state," Heidi Bray, executive director of the Forest Festival, said. "We typically draw a crowd of about 75,000 people. And it's meant to be a homecoming to the community each year. And honoring our full traditions and celebrating our heritage of the strong timber industry in this area."
Bray said that almost 40 events take place during the festival. This year's theme is Wild, Wild West Virginia. There will be a chainsaw carver, a conservation village, falconry, a lumberjack competition, highlands dance competition and several other events, including the coronation of Queen Sylvia LXXXIII. Anna Marie Ruf, from Belington, will be this year's deity of the forest.
Although events will take place throughout the week, the bulk of the main events take place next weekend.
Forestry is a big part of West Virginia's heritage and the lumberjack competition is a reflection of that.
"We have a lumberjack competition that goes on every year," Ben Shaffer, president of the festival's board of directors, said. "Some of the activities in that are kind of more modernized, like a souped up chainsaw, but there's still a lot of things that are involved in that competition with an ax and crosscut saws that were used 100 years ago during logging activities, but are actually still used today."
However, the festival also reflects the cultural character of the people who settled here long ago. Katie Dillon has taught highlands dancing in Elkins for close to 25 years. She is an organizer of the Highlands Dance Competition that took place on Friday. It's one of the festival's newer traditions, having only been around for 5 years, not counting the two that were shutdown by COVID.
"There is so much Highland heritage here in West Virginia," she said. "A lot of Scots when they came over from Scotland settled in this area because it looks like Scotland. So there's lots of people here with Scottish ancestry and Scottish roots. So that is how it fits in perfectly with the forest festival."
Dillon said that Scottish Dance is a very niche sport, it's not popularly known throughout the U.S. However, most people in Elkins know what it is because of the ties to Scottish heritage here.
Shaffer said several events throughout the week will be free. The marquis events are the coronation of Queen Sylvia as well as Fireman's parade on Friday and the Grand Parade on Saturday.
The festival is also economically important to Elkins.
"We have numerous food and craft vendors that this is their livelihood," Shaffer said. "They're able to come here and hopefully do well, profit, and then be able to take what they've earned back to their areas and hometowns and continue that secondary spread. From an economic standpoint, I think that's vital."
However, for Elkins residents the festival isn't just an expression of national or industrial heritage, but one of camaraderie as they meet and greet one more time under the autumn sun. More than anything, the Forest Festival is a homecoming. At the kickoff party held Saturday afternoon, old friends greeted one another trading jokes over cans of Budweiser.
"Even though we've lived here all our lives, this is the place where people see each other, our paths don't cross," Beth Judy, one of the attendees at the kickoff party, said. "It's just how beautiful fall is. We're celebrating fall, we're grateful to be outside and enjoying the company of people we haven't seen for a while."
Reach Esteban at efernandez@timeswv.com
