A tradition in peril - Nordicfest in 2008

One of Libby's most famed festivals has entered a precarious turning point, one that will likely resolve in either its elimination or its transformation.

Nordicfest just completed its 22nd year and at this point no one can really say if it will survive until its 23rd.

The festival's survival ruffled some town talk back in May, when its tired president appealed for community help via a letter to this newspaper.

After eight years of almost year-round effort, John Desch wants to let go of the leadership.

"After a while you just don't care. I think what we need is new ideas, new people, new thoughts," Desch said last week in an interview at his office at Flathead Electric Cooperative.

Nordicfest is the result of a 13-person board of directors. No commitments, either new or in-house, have stepped forward to relieve Desch and a few other departing members.

The board invited any interested public to its regular meeting last Thursday at the Venture Motor Inn. Hardly anyone showed except the core members.

The meeting began with the usual administrative formalities — minutes, committee reports, financial stats. The treasurer reported that the festival's checking account had dipped below zero.

But it was the search for new board members that weighed heavily on the meeting.

"Let's don't beat around the bush. We're in trouble. Without a leadership, we have nothing," said fund-raising chairperson Gene Auge.

The board needs to start preparing before January for the next festival. But it can't proceed until new leadership is identified. And no one knows if that will happen. So the board seems to be at an impasse, an impasse that will affect the entire city's economic machine, not just the non-profits and religious organizations that fund-raise at the festival.

Some board members pegged the lack of interest as a failure to tap into the city's youth population. Some see it as a failure of imagination, a failure to rejuvenate the festival with the addition of new ideas or the removal of stagnant ideas.

But no one is really sure.

"We tried quite a few things over the years," said board member Jan Erickson, who heads the royalty committee. She said some rather big-name musical acts performed in the 1990s.

Now, the budget won't allow such acts.

"For some reason, Libby doesn't really want to pay for a big name ticket in Libby but they'll go out of town and pay for a big-name ticket," Erickson said.

Taking hints from the rejuvenated Whitefish Winter Carnival, Desch mentioned the possibility of ice carving, skijoring — where dogs or horses pull ski-bound humans — and even arm wrestling competitions.

Other ideas included a larger and more diverse selection of food booths, music, and competitions.

Some on the board fear the festival is losing its appeal with the locals. It's the same thing year after year, they said. And those from out of town are coming in smaller and smaller numbers. Nothing like summers past when the charter busloads descended on Libby from all over the Northwest.

"You see a fair crowd," Desch said, commenting on festivals within the last couple of years. "But it's not like we used to see."

Desch said the last crowd indicative of the festival's mid 90s heyday appeared in 2003.

But the name Nordicfest still survives.

Its mention still conjures sweeping images of the area's most dominant ethnic celebration that sprawls outside of one city park near the center of town into another park north of town. Its mention still hints at the scope of the Scandinavian Peninsula that consumes the Norwegian Sea and comprises the three kingdoms of Norway, Sweden and Denmark.

But that may soon change.

It seems the emergence of a technologically wired world has showed signs of undercutting this traditional celebration of heritage.

According to Desch, the festival lost some craft booths to internet sales this year.

"I don't know what's going to happen. I know my wife doesn't want to be treasurer anymore. She's tired. She's done. I really don't want to be president anymore," Desch said.

He doesn't have much resolve to quit, though. If someone comes forward to whom he feels comfortable entrusting the leadership, he said he will stick around for a year and show that person how he does it.

Big shoes need to be filled. And they need to be filled fast.

"We can't plan, we can't raise funds until we figure out what is happening next year,"

Desch said. "Unless someone steps forward, I don't think (Nordicfest) is going to happen."

Nordicfest began in 1985 as an economic action in response to a tightened economy caused by a decline in logging revenue.

It was created as an educational nonprofit, providing scholarships to high school students and serving as a cultural gauge for a community populated, in part, by multigenerational Norwegians.

Board members say the community will be left with an economic and cultural gap if the festival dies in 2008.

They want a strong festival or nothing.

"I don't want to be associated with it if it's not good," one member told the board Thursday night.

In the next few months, the board has agreed to try to refine its mission and restore its members, both of which have slowed with the friction of tired habits and tendencies.

In an effort to tweak its mission to the cultural standards and trends of 2008, it has agreed to collect the thoughts and ideas of the community, especially the youth.

To that end, Les Nelson, the 2007 Nordicfest King, proposed a symposium, an open forum for the exchange of ideas by anyone in the community.

"You've got to have people fired up, who want to do it, who love that they're doing it, who see a mission in it," Nelson said.