Festivals Provide Outdoor Fun
When you don’t know where to begin sightseeing on the Door Peninsula, head to a festival. Door County has some unique ones, but these kind of Peninsula parties provide opportunities to spend time outdoors in scenic areas while soaking up the local culture.
After all, where else can you start summer with a celebration to expel the winter witch, like Ephraim’s Fyr Bal does, and cap the season by dropping PingPong balls from the sky in Sister Bay?
Door is a land of community festivals. It seems, each community has its own distinctive event.
The expansion of the summer season was one of the reason behind Door County’s Festival of Blossoms. It’s an umbrella title that spreads over a variety of events from Sturgeon Bay’s shipyard tours early in the month to the long-standing Maifest celebration in Jacksonport over Memorial Day weekend.
Everyone loves lighthouses on Door County’s annual spring Lighthouse Walk, another festival favorite in the middle of the month. May’s warmer breezes rustle cherry tree blossoms which is more in line with the festival’s intent.
But the Jacksonport Advancement Corporation’s Maifest is more like the traditional festivals that Door County is noted for. Centered around the waterfront town park, there is an arts & crafts fair, rides and an old-fashioned Sunday afternoon horse pull.
Come June, Ephraim’s Fyr Bal may be Door County’s most unusual festival. A ring of bonfires span the Eagle Harbor waterfront awaiting the arrival by boat of the new festival chieftain, a honor of the highest magnitude within the village.
It followed a week later by what may be the county’s original throwback festival as Olde Ellison Bay Days pays tribute to parades, ice socials and everything that is American.
It’s set the tone for Fourth of July festivals on the Peninsula as fireworks light up the sky from Sturgeon Bay to Washington Island. Baileys Harbor and Egg Harbor have long held their parades, in the morning and afternoon respectively.
Also in July, Belgian Days in Brussels is a feast of Belgian culture. The food, alone, is worth attending. But there’s plenty more.
In August, Jacksonport honors Door County’s most famous fruit with CherryFest.
Actually, August may be the county’s busiest month as the Door County Maritime Museum hosts its annual Classic & Wooden Boat Show and tradition is again paid its due respect with the Door County Fair and the Thresheree & Antique Machinery Show.
While festivals are held throughout the year — don’t miss the Fish Creek Winter Game in February — at no time are they more popular than in fall. In fact, the year’s biggest is saved for last when Sister Bay holds its annual Fall Festival bash in October.
The fall festival season warms up with events in both Sturgeon Bay and Baileys Harbor in September.
But it’s the fall colors that people come to see and Egg Harbor and Sister Bay have positioned their events to try and take advantage.
Make hotel reservations early for both weekends.
Egg Harbor’s Pumpkin Patch Festival is held Columbus Day weekend. This extremely popular event started in 1983 to celebrate autumn and protect the harvest. Decorated scarecrows and pumpkins are the main attractions throughout the village.
A week later the annual migration to Sister Bay Fall Fesitval is under way. It’s been going on for more than 60 years. Don’t miss the PingPong ball drop Sunday afternoon.
Other Fall Fest attractions are the ever-present arts and crafts fair in Village Park and scores of food and drink booths that line Bay Shore Drive.
