Rangeley Logging Festival (review)

The Rangeley Logging Festival, hosted by the Rangeley Lakes Region Logging Museum of Rangeley, Maine, is an excellent example of what can happen when a community comes together to celebrate, present, and perpetuate its heritage. Located in Maine's western mountains, Rangeley and its surrounding communities are steeped in the heritage of the timber industry: logging, milling, and crafting. The residents of this region are proud of their timber heritage. The festival, now in its 21st year, is their way of sharing pride with others and with themselves.

Rangeley is small: About 1,600 people call it home year-round. In the summer months, the population swells to 6,000 with people who call the town and region their summer home. Summer folk are welcomed into the fold of community life while in the area, but the festival focuses on year-round residents.

The festival was initiated by retired logger and chainsaw carver Rodney Richard, who is currently president of the logging museum. He envisioned a festival that would involve the community at-large in celebrating, perpetuating, and preserving local woods life. Through the wisdom of the museum board, supplemented since 1985 with the folkloristic expertise of Peggy Yocom, the logging festival today has three components, corresponding with aspects of community and timber life: logging skills, foodways, and entertainment. The following description of the festival may sound familiar to those of us who attend local festivals on a regular basis. My point in offering it is, however, to reexamine what makes a local folk festival so important to the community.

The festival takes place over two days. Events kick off Friday afternoon with the burying of the "bean hole beans" and a biscuit bake (more about that below), continuing that evening with the Little Master and Miss Wood Chip contest and inductions into the Logger Hall of Fame. This event gathers a standing-room-only crowd in the banquet room of the Rangeley Inn. After the awards are given and photos taken, everyone enjoys an informative and energetic talk-demonstration of North American clogging styles performed by the Maine Attraction Cloggers from Arundel.

Saturday's events start with a parade. By 10:00 a.m., the American Legion color guard leads off the parade with a marching band following close behind. Community-made floats represent the region's logging heritage with everything from honking log trucks to flatbed trailers holding comedy acts, the Rangeley Ramblers singing "when it's logging time in Rangeley," and the ever-popular Maine Attraction Cloggers.

The parade ends with applause, and the crowd moves to the festival grounds at the Logging Museum Field. The museum is open for visitors. Next to the museum, two tents are set up for visiting craftspeople, which include, among other work, Frank Stevens's wooden log trucks and Joseph Richards's carved shore birds and duck carvings. A nearby field houses a covered area with picnic tables and a small stage. Another field is bordered by tiered seating made from railroad ties, forming a shallow amphitheater.

To the right of the stage, visitors can witness one of the most important features of the festival, the "bean hole beans." According to the festival brochure, in the tradition of log camp foodways, "Wayne White and his family build fires, parboil [yellow-eye] beans in the oversized bean pots, add special ingredients [including molasses, whole onions, mustard, and salt pork], seal the pots, and lower them into the deep bean holes. The Whites shovel coals, and then sand, over the pots so the beans can cook slowly all night long." White flour biscuits are made and baked by Steve Richard in reflector ovens. Beans and biscuits will become the dinner that visitors eagerly anticipate, as some of their ancestors might have after a long day of working the woods.

The logging contest takes place in the center of the field. Log cants are set up on standards for the chainsaw contest. Thirty-pound pulp sticks have been gathered for the pulp-toss contest. A target stands...