NIPIGON – Area residents showed up in droves on Saturday for the start of the 22nd annual Blueberry Blast Street Festival.
The Nipigon Blueberry Blast, held every august, was founded in 2002 as way for the town to celebrate something special during the summer: blueberries.
"In any small town, any community and anywhere in Canada, there's always one thing that's very intrinsic to them,” said Gary Gross, co-chair of this year's event.
“And that usually it gets to be anything, it could be a type of fish, which we also worry about here, the brown trout record of the world is here, but blueberries have always been a passion of the community.”
The festival has grown over the years barring a few during the pandemic and has become such a staple of summer in Nipigon that people couldn't wait to get started this year as roughly 200 area residents showed up within the first hour of the festival.
“We were really hoping for a really good solid turnout this year and it looks like we probably will have it. It's early, it's only, you know, 12:30 today we have quite a few people around. There's some activity with the vendors,” said Gross.
“I think some of the things we've done, I'm hoping it worked out well this year for us. We're just blessed that we're blessed with weather, blessed with people blessed with great everything that's going on here today.”
Beyond inviting members of the town out to socialize with each other once again, Gross said that the Blueberry Blast is also an important tool in connecting area communities with each other as many small communities can feel isolated.
“If you look at Nipigon for example, we have a grocery store, beer store, post office, and so on. And those facilities are in Red Rock, but Dorion doesn't have a lot out there in the community of Dorion, so they interact here as well,” he said.
“So, we all share in each other's events whenever we can and there's a good camaraderie that goes on between them sometimes, I guess a little bit of pleasant competition over certain things, but it is important.”
The festival continues Sunday and is completely free to attend, though cash donations are greatly appreciated. To find out more about the schedule visit the Blueberry Blast website.