ELY- By 11 a.m. on Friday, the lines in the food court at the Harvest Moon Festival in Whiteside Park were substantial, but it was still worth the wait for all those who had missed out their chance for fair food when the Blueberry Art Festival was canceled by the July wildfires. The lines were indicative of a festival that drew big crowds throughout the weekend and hefty totals for vendors.
“I was hearing from vendors that sales were phenomenal,” said Ely Chamber Events Director Kristen Switajewski. “Some said they did better than they had during previous Blueberry festivals. We definitely needed this. It was just an amazing event.”
Switajewski admitted she was tired after two solid days of on-the-ground festival preparation, plus the three days on the job during the weekend.
“I think I clocked around 10 miles on my feet,” she said.
Even the late afternoon rain on Friday didn’t dampen the mood for vendors, she said.
“Some local vendors ended up going home early to make more stuff to make it through the weekend,” she said. “They had already sold out.”
Foot traffic was definitely higher from previous years, Switajewski said, but it was hard to compare because the two previous years had less than optimal weather. And with many area schools, including Ely, now on a four-day week, there were a lot more families with children, and plenty of teens, cruising around the park on the opening day Friday.
“There were gusty winds on Saturday and Sunday, but that didn’t prevent folks from coming out.”
Not only vendors, but also food trucks ran into supply problems.
“The food court was even running out of food,” she said.
The festival featured a wide variety of arts, crafts, and locally-produced foods.
Tony Knauer was busy introducing shoppers to his locally-grown honey and jams. Fairhaven Honey, located in Rochester, has been producing honey for 45 years, and currently has 20 bee hives.
“It’s been a super year,” Knauer said. “We are still harvesting.”
“We were supposed to come up for Blueberry, so we had made a lot of blueberry-honey jam,” he said. Luckily, blueberries were on the mind of a lot of shoppers, so that jam, along with many other varieties, were being snapped up.
The honey operation is a family affair, and Tony’s granddaughter Nora was helping at the festival, and she also helps at home packaging the honey. In the booth she was busy handing out individual samples of honey products and jam, along with tiny tasting spoons.
Youngsters visiting the booth got a chance to try on beekeeping gear. Stella and Owen Johnson took turns trying on the bee-keepers hood and playing with the smoker. They were up in Ely for the weekend, visiting their grandmother Kris Winkelman, co-owner of Arrowhead Outdoors.
Among those browsing booths on Friday was Sen. Tina Smith and her husband Archie. The couple, on vacation, had just gotten back from a Boundary Waters trip from Fall Lake up into Pipestone Bay. They were busy selecting from a huge variety of hand-carved olivewood kitchen utensils, picking out a few to bring back home.
Don and Lois Pearson, of Bemidji, were among the vendors at the festival, and they were introducing customers to their fused glass designs. The couple started experimenting with fused glass in 2020, and now that Lois is fully retired, and Don is only working part-time as a realtor, the two are doing more shows, often also camping for the weekend. They taught themselves the techniques needed, with a lot of trial and error, along with breakage, they said with a laugh. They often use iridescent glass, which changes color depending on the amount of light shining through the pieces. They were at Harvest Moon back in 2024 and were happy to be back up.
“We really like this show,” they said. “Lots of fun conversations with people.”
Booth winners
These booths were recognized for excellence at this year’s festival, and they receive discounted booth fees for next year’s Harvest Moon. Booths were judged by five volunteer judges (all with a background in one or more categories) with a ten-point scale in five categories: product quality/consistency, flavor/texture/overall enjoyment, originality and creativity, packaging/labeling, and booth presentation/customer appeal.
Winners are listed in order, first, second, and third.
Art category: Dafne Caruso, Bear Island Art, Pine to Piarie Art.
Craft category: Levandowski Pottery, Forging Community, True Vivid Stone
Marketplace/Maker category: Spooky Beverages, Simply Homemade, Honeypot Beeswax Candles.
Food Court- voted by attendees: BoB-a-Q, Curbside Crepes, Becky’s Oriental Food.