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Serving Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

Timber Days gets 'yellow light' approval from council

David Colburn
Posted 2/5/21

COOK- People still experiencing withdrawal symptoms from the cancellation of regional summer festivals last year in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic should be heartened by action taken last Thursday …

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Timber Days gets 'yellow light' approval from council

Posted

COOK- People still experiencing withdrawal symptoms from the cancellation of regional summer festivals last year in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic should be heartened by action taken last Thursday at the Cook City Council meeting.
Council members gave the Timber Days organizing committee a unanimous thumbs-up to “proceed with caution” with planning for a somewhat scaled-down version of the three-day festival to be held, COVID-permitting, June 11, 12, and 13.
Organizing committee chairman Steve Kajala described initial plans for the festival.
“We are looking to hold a bare bones version of the regular Timber Days, but bringing in most of everything we can,” Kajala said.
Operating under the assumption that some or all COVID safety and prevention protocols will still be in place, the committee has pared away activities that would be difficult or impossible to do.
“The bounce house is not going to work,” Kajala said. “Kids games where people are touching things, that’s not going to work. Baseball, obviously, is out.”
A beer garden also would not be possible, Kajala said.
In addition to asking the council’s permission to utilize the downtown park and Front Street, Kajala said the committee wants to incorporate the new Veterans Park by the river on the north end of downtown.
“The fence is not going to be in and probably not the monument and other stuff, but we’ll have some of the tables and fixtures there,” Kajala said. “It would be good to bring people down there so people know what’s going on.”
The committee is also looking at options for a virtual event, perhaps a virtual escape room, that will engage people in Timber Days who may be uncomfortable participating in Timber Days in person, Kajala said. Possibilities for streaming video of some of the activities is also being explored.
Without a crystal ball, there’s no way of knowing if yet another big spike in COVID-19 would cause Timber Days to be canceled again, but for now the committee is planning with the hope they can pull it off.
“The big risk is if we’re two weeks away and we’ve laid out a lot of money ahead of time which wouldn’t be refundable at that point,” Kajala said. “When we canceled last year it was at the beginning of April, so the only money we had laid out was for the gambling permit and fireworks, and the fireworks folks allowed us to postpone to this year."
Council members approved use of the spaces Kajala requested, and city administrator Theresa Martinson also said that she would temporarily block out reservations for the community center for those dates in case the committee came up with an idea that could use it.