A Brief History of the Aitkin Area Chamber's
Former Premiere Living History Festival

Festival of Adventures™ was a very popular and successful community event developed and managed for 20 years by the Aitkin Area Chamber of Commerce between the years 1990 and 2009. It was a cooperative venture between the Aitkin County Historical Society and the chamber that highlighted the area's ethnic heritage and history, and served to bring needed attention to the resources and functions of the Aitkin County Historical Society.

Festival of Adventures™ featured one of the top school day events in the industry, a variety of talented ethinic and history-based musical entertainment, a popular pow wow demonstration, a large variety of living history interpretations, a vibrant rendezvous encampment and a variety of popular food vendors.

Festival of Adventures™ annually attracted crowds numbering in the thousands in its first 20 years with the Aitkin Area Chamber. It also featured strong local ownership and participation by community individuals, organization members and volunteers that often annually peaked at numbers well over 200 local volunteer participants.

In 2006, the Mud River Music Fest was added to the festival in an attempt to stem the decline of the event caused by the increasing public lack of interest in the rendezvous and living history portion of the event. Festival of Adventures™ was finally discontinued as a chamber event in early 2010 due to the continued decline in community interest and support for the living history and rendezvous aspect of the festival.

In 2010 Festival of Adventures™ was retired by the Aitkin Area Chamber. An event revival was attempted by a handful of previous individual rendezvous participants who started a greatly scaled-down and more narrowly focused rendezvous event later that year. The resulting current rendezvous event is individually operated outside the participation or management of the Aitkin Area Chamber.

The Aitkin Area Chamber is indebted to the many volunteers, the core event committee members, the event participants, community organizations, the Aitkin County Historical Society, the City of Aitkin and the supporting public for all showing the community spirit and commitment in coming together to help make Festival of Adventures™ a wonderful success as an important source of community pride for the two decades of its existence!