Van Buren festival accents local culture

VAN BUREN – Baked beans, rock and roll, dancing in the streets, raising money for cancer research, and religion is the combination for the sixth annual Summer Festival this weekend in the gateway town to the St. John Valley.

Sponsored by the Greater Van Buren Chamber of Commerce, the weekend is without a theme, but it seems to be a time to kick up your heels and have a good time.

An Acadian Mass kicks off the weekend at 5 p.m. Friday at Van Buren’s Acadian Village.

That’s followed by the French Acadian meal of baked beans and hot dogs, roast pork, fried bologna, red potatoes, fiddleheads, baked bread and, of course, ployes, the flat buckwheat pancake that was a staple of St. John Valley meals of years gone by. Lionel Doucette of Grand Isle will be there with his fiddle.

It doesn’t end until the 8 p.m. performance by Shania Twin – a Shania Twain double from Ontario, on Sunday night.

“We’ve never had a theme for the weekend, even though we’ve thought about it a lot,” Sue Ouellette, executive director of the Chamber of Commerce, said Thursday. “It’s a weekend to have fun and good times.

“It’s a time of the year when class reunions are held in town and people who left here come home,” she said. “It’s just a lot of fun.”

In between the Acadian religious experience and the concert, the three days are loaded with activities.

There’s a breakfast at the American Legion Hall starting at 6 a.m. Saturday and then people can walk that off during the town’s cancer Support Group Walk-a-Thon.

The local Pine Runners ATV Club will have an ATV pull starting at noon. The Van Buren Ski Shop will have a bike race at 4 p.m. Then there’s more food with an Acadian plate of chicken stew, more beans, hot dogs, ployes and a picnic of hot dogs and hamburgers by the Lions Club or doughboys by Project Graduation.

That’s all before a street dance where Main Street will be closed to traffic from the street that goes to the International Bridge to the Van Buren post office. Bands will play music from Robin’s Restaurant and the Yacht Club.

On Sunday there’s more food by the Lions Club, and the Chamber will have a pig roast. At the river, the boat landing near the International Bridge, there will be games for the kids through the afternoon and a duck decoy race from the bridge on the St. John River.

The weekend ends with Donna Huber’s “Shania Twin” concert at the high school gymnasium. Huber, a 38-year-old, has performed at the Calgary Stampede in western Canada for three years and has appeared on television.

Along with her Shania Twain tribute, Huber has her own CD, “Donna Huber – Bring It On.” Her tribute includes 24 of Shania Twain’s hits.