Welcome to Midsummerfest!

You’re Invited to Midsummerfest!

by Ian Dowell · Bulletin Staff Writer & Your Host

Imagine being magically transported to another place. A place far, far away from your normal workaday life of commuting, laundry, and telemarketers. A place where food is plentiful and good conversation abounds. A placid and pastoral place. That place is Midsummerfest!

For over four decades, I’ve gathered together an intrepid group of interesting and interested folks to spend a summer weekend together in the Hundred Aker Wood in South Royalton, Vermont enjoying good fellowship, good food and the beauty of nature.

It’s not exactly a camping trip (though Festers stay in tents and there is no running water or electricity). It’s not exactly a party (though it is Festive). And it certainly is not a beer bash (BYOB), New Age retreat, or singles weekend. It is a unique experience which encourages you to stretch and free yourself from the constraints of your everyday experience for a couple of days.

In addition to talking, eating, reading, sleeping, walking in the woods, playing in the fields, and swimming in the ponds, there are a few traditional (though optional) organized activities.

For early arrivals, there is a leisurely Tubing trip down the White River on Friday afternoon. Friday evening, MSF proper starts with an Opening Ceremony to bring everyone together and to introduce the new folks.

Saturday usually brings an original Adventure of some sort (treasure hunt, scavenger hunt, role-playing mystery, etc.) which encourages friendly competition and cooperation as well as some wandering in the forest. We also try to have a Paintball game. Saturday evening, the MidsummerFeast steak dinner is served on the deck on the Barn, and is followed by the Travesty un-talent show in which everyone is encouraged to “entertain” their fellow Festers with a joke, skit or song for which they are rewarded with a coveted Midsummerfest “Mug.” The evening wraps up with a Bonfire complete with singalongs and s’mores.

Sunday is mostly left open, but in the afternoon we all come together for the group picture and Closing Ceremony, though everyone is welcome to stay until sundown.

Midsummerfest has ranged from 6 to 44 people, though these days it usually falls between 12 and 22 Festers who range in age from 13 to 65. Most Festers are friends from high school, college, companies and theater groups for whom I have worked as well as their friends and significant others.

The Hundred Aker Wood is, in fact, 100 acres of woods belonging to the Dowell family five miles from Interstate 89 about three hours from Boston. It has two pristine spring-fed ponds for swimming, two fields to run around in, miles of forest trails and beautiful three level post-and-beam barn.

If this sounds like fun to you, I hope you will join us in Royalton this summer for Midsummerfest!

Original invitation text

The Woods Is Callin’

by Fred Glompers · Local Woodsman

Hello agin. I reckin its ben awhile sinst we talked, so’s I thought I’d make my pitch to yer while black fly season’s ragin’ outside. No point in goin’ out there. If it aint black flies, a body’s likely to get chased by a randy moose or some such, them not being too particular when the excitement of that time a’ years upon ’em, and not seein too good neither. Either that, or some bar’s just wakin’ up from hibernatin, and lookin’ for grub of whatever sort.

Anyhoo, the discernin’ woodsman (or woodswoman or kid) knows early spring is time to lay low and stay out a’ the back forty. So when is the wonders of nature fit for human visitation? I’m glad you askd. Winters okay, in its way, specially if yer into snowshoein’ and the like, or keen to hunt rabbits. When I was a young ’un, twenny years ago, you could be sure ter find me trompin’ thru the trees on a moonlit winter night, with a jug of Ol’ Special in my pack, and a few of my woodsies (that’d be homies to yer city slicker types) alongside. But later, after that encounter with the thinly crusted over pond and the very wet and cold finale, I decided ter leave such shenanigans to folks with better cardiovaskuler health.

Fall’s good, real good, what with the leaves showin nice colors and everything. Early on, it’s not too cold durin’ the day. Ya just gotta make lots of non animal soundin’ noise and wear more orange than a halloween pumpkin, tho’, or yer’ll spend lots a time dodgin shotgun rounds since that’s prime huntin’ season.

So the best time a year is Summer, hands down. It’s dry, or it can be anyways—lots dryer than spring. The flies that were torturin’ folks earlier are dead ’n gone, and the ’skiters are more susceptibl ter yer various ointments an’ sprays. It’s hot enough fer swimmin, and when you’ve spent any amount a time in the woods, a quick rinse off is the difference between making friends or influencin’ people the wrong way, if you catch my drift. There ain’t nothin’ like jumpin into a cool mountain pond in the heat of a summers day, when the risk of heart attack is muchly reduced from doin’ that trick in wintertime. There’s berrys, too, for pickin’ and eatin right off the vines, and hikes along beutiful woodland trails. Nighttimes are comfy. You could go skinnydippin under moonlight with hypothermia being only a risk to those who stay in the pond all night long. If yer bring a bathin suit yer chances are even better!

If you catch a night where the skies are clear, the stars seem to reach down and surround you. If you never been where it’s really dark, far away from city lights, that alone is ’nuf reason to make the trek. Add a couple a shootin stars, and it’s heaven, literally. Lessee, mealtimes is speciul too, food tastin’ better somehow when you bin outdoors for a good long stretch. And sittin’ around a fire, heck, who doesn’t like that? Relaxin’, and romantic in its way, and of course the guys not havin’ their TV remotes all pokin’ at the fire with sticks to manage it as if it couldn’t do just fine on its own, but that’s just part of the fun.

But as if all that aint enough, this yar is gonna be particular fine. It’s been more’n twenny years since my good fren’ Ian MacDowell first asked a group of frens and strangers to gather together for a weekend of hangin’ out in these Vermont woods. And he’s invited those folks who’ve bin before, whether once or many times, back to take it in agin and replenish their spirits (not the liquid kind, I mean) with good company, good food, and one a nature’s best settings. I’m lookin forward ter seein’ the newbies faces when the real old timers tell the stories from the early days, when Midsummerfest was—lets face facts—scary, dark, and wet. An’ contrariwise, the expression of total bewilderment on those grizzled veterans’ mugs when they experience a modern Fest. One featurin such diverse elemints as sunshine, warmth, creature comforts, a lovely two level water park, a huge mowed field, and actual buildins worthy of the name and unlikely to collapse at a moments notice! And a road unlikely to rip the undercarriage off a typical set a wheels! Why, they’ll think they took a wrong turn somewheres! Its a whole new world up there, I tell ya, but for all that it keeps the ’portant things that makes the hundred acre woods a rejuvenatin and wonderful place to go.

Anyways, I hope ter see ya up there. Whoever goes, it’s gonna be a good time, but it’ll be that much better if you are there. Lookin’ forward to it!

Yers in woodcraft and fellowship,

Fred