Weekend Alert

Ma & Pa Kettle Days

Folks in Kettle River will celebrate the 36th (almost annual) Ma & Pa Kettle Days Friday through Sunday.

Friday’s activities include a beer garden and steak fry at Tower Tap starting at

5 p.m., followed by a street dance starting at 8 p.m. with music by Stranded.

Events kick off at 8 a.m. Saturday, with food vendors and a beer garden, a barbecue cookoff (awards at 3 p.m.), food shelf drive, softball tournament, kids games and a medallion hunt. A cornhole tournament starts at 10 a.m. and music starts at noon. At 8 p.m., there will be another street dance with Pine County Line.

Enjoy a Sunday funday starting at noon with the Battle of the Bars (Tower Tap vs. Mikey’s Bar), and acoustic entertainment by Taylor at the Tower Tap. There’s more information at Ma & Pa Kettle Days’ Facebook page.

Music festival

The annual Christian music festival returns to Cloquet’s Veterans Park Saturday, Aug. 14. Like many things after the pandemic, the Christian music festival has changed.

No. 1, it’s now called the Wood City Worship Festival. Lee Harris, who helps lead the Kingdom Builders Ministry that puts on the annual festival, said they hit the reset button during the pandemic, both for the Common Ground Coffee Bar & Deli in Cloquet’s West End and the music festival.

“We’re really getting back to why we have the building in the first place. Worship and prayer is the heart of our ministry, so we want the park to reflect that. Even the artists are more worshipful this summer, versus top 40 stuff,” Harris said.

At the same time, Wood City is still a music festival, with music all day long from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday. Find a full schedule on the woodcitymusicfest Facebook page. The festival is free and open to people of all ages. There will be bounce houses for the kids, food vendors, worship and music, of course. There will be free parking in designated public parking lots and on-street parking. Festival-goers need to bring their own chairs and blankets. Although great food at reasonable prices and beverages will be available for purchase, people also are welcome to bring their own snacks and non-alcoholic beverages.

More to come

More fun activities continue through the end of August. There’s opera at the Scott House on Tuesday and the Free Range Film Fest Aug. 20-21, see page 16 for more on both. The Carlton County fair runs Aug. 19-22; find a schedule of events on Page 3. The 60th Lakehead Harvest Reunion will be celebrated Aug. 27-29 in Esko. And the annual Labor Day parade in Cloquet is all set for Monday, Sept. 6 at 11 a.m. so save the date.