Event Background

Festival of Adventures can trace its origins to 1979 and the Aitkin Heritage Committee. The Aitkin Heritage Committee brought together the resources of the Aitkin County Historical Society and the Aitkin Area Chamber of Commerce. The Committee was founded to encourage community understanding and appreciation for Aitkin's unique heritage, and to formulate a long-term plan that develops programs and events relating to Aitkin's colorful past.

The committee outlined two distinct era's of interest: the fur trade and upper Mississippi steamboating. A festival began in 1980 called Aitkin Heritage Days that highlighted local heritage. By the mid-1980s, this event was renamed Aitkin Riverboat Heritage Days and began to drift from the focus of multi-period heritage. The long-term plan was to develop a special multi-period event that focused on living history. Eventually, two clearly distinct events had emerged: Riverboat Heritage Days and Festival of Adventures.

Today, Festival of Adventures stays true to its multi-period roots, while Aitkin Riverboat Heritage Days focuses primarily on the spirit of Aitkin's riverboat transportation era.

Festival of Adventures is a joint-venture of the Aitkin County Historical Society and the Aitkin Area Chamber of Commerce. The event was created with a focus on heritage and learning.The festival is held in September each year to coincide with the history unit taught in Minnesota public schools. The festival is also open to the general public on the Saturday and Sunday following School Day and serves to enlighten visitors regarding our area's heritage and ethnic diversity.

Because of the broad nature of our focus on School Day, schools attend from as far away as central North Dakota during School Day. Typically the School Day handles 1,000+ students (our self-imposed limit) each year from area, statewide, and out-of-state schools. The schools represented are public, private and home schools. We take great pride in the fact that our School Day program continues to receive excellent reviews.

An early photograph of Festival of Adventures back in the days when the event only encompassed a few acres and lasted one day. The former Log Museum is seen to the left of the picture. Today's event covers many acres, is three days long and attracts attendance in the thousands.

The overall success of the Festival of Adventures can be attributed to the wide participation and volunteerism that supports the event. Many top national- and regional reenactors and demonstrators kindly donate their time and energy to help provide a high quality educational experience during School Day. In addition to these top-notch reenancters, there is strong participation by people of all ages from our own community and surrounding area who have become dedicated volunteers, guides, interpreters, and demonstrators at the festival. They typically include local professional people, businesspeople, educators and retirees. Service clubs and organizations, the City of Aitkin and various local and county agencies also help provide support and manpower.

Without this dedication and support, our educational program could not be as successful, nor would the visitor get such a strong local historical perspective to the event. Because it's our own local history we are presenting throughout the festival, our community's pride in our heritage really shows!

We are truely grateful for the dedication and support of our volunteer guides and reenactors from the community at large. They provide the talent, knowledge and ambition that makes this event the success it has become. Please join us in thanking each and everyone for their time, commitment and enthusiasm--and the talents they share with us each year at their own time and expense!

Festival of Adventures was originally located in the area surrounding the former Log Museum during its early days. Today, due to the overall success and annual growth of the event, the event has now expanded to use a large protion of the City Park and is linked with a unique footbridge that is only in place during the festival.