Children, family area planned for festival Pickering Square activities part of folk weekend

BANGOR – Organizers of the National Folk Festival unveiled plans for one component of the Aug. 23-25 event Wednesday – an area specifically targeting children and families.

The Children and Family Activity Area, to be centered at Bangor’s Pickering Square, will be coordinated by staff at the Maine Discovery Museum, located behind the square.

“We want to transform Pickering Square into a hive of activity for children and families,” said Andrea Stark, the museum’s director of education and exhibits.

Activities at the area, sponsored by Bangor Savings Bank, will transport children back to the 19th and early 20th centuries to show how imagination and a few props could translate into fun.

In the crafts area, children will be able to learn how to make American Indian corn, traditional yarn or a dancing jumping jack doll, a thaumatrope, a whirligig or a “whizzer.”

Among the fun waiting in the games area will be rolling a barrel hoop down Water Street, hopscotch, string and clapping games or the more quiet cribbage or jackstraws (pick-up sticks).

Also in the area will be “Maine’s Wild Wonders,” with educator Tony Sohns and an exhibit of live animals, fossils, furs and skeletons displaying the variety of wildlife native to this region.

In the area’s performance tent, there will be traditional fiddling by young musicians, American Indian and Franco-American storytelling and songs, and “At Home at Sea,” an hour of stories, sea chanteys and interactive role-play.

There also will be a special infant-toddler area with activities for the youngest fairgoers.

First presented in St. Louis in 1934, the National Folk Festival is the oldest multicultural event in the nation and the first of its kind to present the arts of many nations, races and languages on equal footing.

Moving to Bangor from East Lansing, Mich., it also will be held in Bangor in 2003 and 2004.

For more information about the National Folk Festival, contact the Bangor Convention and Visitors Bureau at (800) 916-6673 or www.nationalfolkfestival.com.