Mid-Winter Fair set at Fort Belknap

Montana State University Fort Belknap Indian Reservation Extension Agency is organizing the annual Mid-Winter Fair, with events kicking off Wednesday, Feb. 5, in the Bingo Hall on Fort Belknap Indian Reservation.

MSU Fort Belknap Extension Family and Consumer Science Agent Hillary Maxwell said she is very much looking forward to the event and, this year, the Mid-Winter Fair will include some new and unique things for people to enjoy.

“It’s very cool,” she said.

She added that this is the Mid-Winter Fair’s 52nd year, and it will include events such as a fiddle and jig concert and competition and a small powwow.

The event started out as a way for people to gather together during the darkest days of winter, she said. During the winter, many people don’t get out into the community and don’t come together as much as they would during the warmer months of the year. The Mid-Winter Fair is a way for people to celebrate the winter and celebrate coming together, she added.

The Mid-Winter Fair will also include workshops and a number of booths and events for community members. The fair officially starts Wed, Feb. 5, and will end Saturday, Feb. 8, but people will start setting up booths Monday, Feb. 3.

Booths will also be set up Tuesday, which also has a mourners’ feed at 6 p.m. for people or families who are mourning.

The opening ceremony for the event will start Wednesday at noon and will be followed by Elderly Protection Bingo at 1:30. Elderly Protection Bingo will include education about opioid abuse and prescription responsibilities.

Starting at 6:30 p.m., a banquet will be held at Hays-Lodge Pole High School. Plates will be $7 each.

Maxwell said the banquet will include a special screening of the student film “Looking Forward From Yesterday,” a documentary created by Harlem High School students that was selected for showing at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in February in Missoula.

She added that a fashion show also will take place during the banquet.

Thursday will have a large number of events, including a canning contest, bread and pie contest, jerky making and dry meat making workshop and a stick game tournament.

Maxwell said that something different from last year is that the organizers of the fair have worked to expand the art show, which will be from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday. She said the art show this year will include quick drawing contests and will feature a larger number of local artists.

Friday will include events such as a youth carnival, pie eating contest, baby parade and a fiddle, jig and waltz contest.

The fiddle, jig and waltz contest is something special for the event that they do every year, Maxwell said, and originates from the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians, which was federally recognized as a Native American Tribe in December, and from the Métis, people of mixed Indigenous and European descent.

She said that everyone and anyone is welcome to come to the fiddle and jig contest and are more than welcome to dance or play music.

“We have some really talented musicians, although they really just are amateurs, but talented musicians who come and play and they are local,” she said.

She added that the fiddle and jig event is interesting and unique, and people should come out and see the event.

Maxwell said that she is excited about the Mid-Winter Fair and to see all the people on the reservation come together and have a good time. She added that she is looking forward to the community being involved and, hopefully, to having good weather.

“I think that I am most excited about some of the new and younger community members who have stepped up to chair some events and really take some leadership roles with some of these events,” she said.