Celeste Hendrickson – 36th Annual Old Victoria Craft Fair: Preserving History for Years to Come

Rockland, Michigan – The 36th Annual Old Victoria Craft Fair takes place on Sunday, August 19th 2018 on Victoria Dam Road in Rockland. The fair, which features arts, crafts, and fun for the whole family reminds today’s generations of the hard work and history of copper mining in the Upper Peninsula. Celeste Hendrickson, who volunteers with the upkeep of Old Victoria, spoke with Todd Pazz on The 8th Day to bring listeners some information on this long-running fair.

The Old Victoria Craft Fair features many vendors that offer products such as homemade jellies and jams, honey, copper jewelry and crocheted items. The festival’s “claim to fame”, according to Hendrickson, is their famous cinnamon rolls. They aren’t just any old cinnamon rolls, however; the rolls are baked from scratch inside of the old mining cabins without any running water or electricity, and then baked inside of old wood stoves. Believe it or not, the fair has cranked out as much as 120 dozen of these rolls in one day!

After grabbing a delicious cinnamon roll, fair goers are encouraged to tour the old mining cabins. These cabins, which were built in 1899 and have since been restored, offer a glimpse into what life was like as a family that relied on the mine to make a living. There are tour guides in each one of these cabins, ready and willing to really help people get a feel for what life was like for the miners and their families back in the day.

“The story of Victoria is the story of the people, it is of the miners, it is of those people that, you know, work hard: 12 hours a day for the bare minimum just to make a living,” said Hendrickson on the rich history that is the centerpiece of the fair.

The unique fair also boasts old-fashioned games for the kids, like sack races, three-legged relays, and egg-and-spoon challenges. Each child that participates gets a goody bag, but what is more important, said Hendrickson, is that they leave with an idea and appreciation for what kids back in the early 1900s did for fun.

After the mine closed in 1921, the cabins stayed and decades of no upkeep certainly left its mark. Talks of tearing down the old cabins came about in the 1970s, but was prevented when a group of people restored them. Hendrickson, a descendant of one the Old Victoria miners, said she regularly volunteers her time to keep the history alive because she wants people to know what these miners went through and that remembering mining history is so very important not only to her and her family, but to people of the Upper Peninsula. Copper mining played perhaps one of the biggest roles in making the U.P. what it is today.

More information on Old Victoria and its restoration can be found on their Facebook page, or by emailing Celeste at oldvictoria1899@gmail.com. The 37th Annual Old Victoria Craft fair will take place next August, but a date is yet to be determined.

The 8th Day thanks Celeste Hendrickson for the information on this unique fair.

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