Nordicfest brings food and fun to Libby

Nordicfest has been a staple for the City of Libby since 1985. This year will mark the 31st year of the event.

Nordicfest is a community-wide celebration that focuses on the area’s Scandinavian heritage. The event includes authentic Scandinavian food, dancing, a parade, arts and crafts and free outdoor entertainment. Despite the event not being as big as it once was it still has the support from the community to keep it going.

“There has been talk about not doing it,” Nordicfest board member Pam Peppenger said. “Those of us that are on the board want to keep it going. It’s been here since 1985. They did a lot of work to get it started and we are working hard to keep it going. Libby is very supportive of Nordicfest. I can’t thank the people of Libby enough for what they do in supporting this event.”  

Nordicfest will kickoff Thursday, Sept. 10, at 7 p.m. with the Kootenai Karacters Melodrama at the K.W. Maki Theatre.

“The Kootenai Karacters will be performing a hometown-written melodrama,” Peppenger said. “They will be performing Treachery in Timbertown on Thursday, Friday and Saturday night.”

Peppenger said that the biggest draw for the event is the Nordicfest Parade. The Parade will take place at 11 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 12.

“We have a great parade,” she said. “We changed it up a bit this year. They don’t have to be in line until 10 a.m. We are going to have judges along the parade route. They are going to be judged now on how they do in the parade instead of just standing there. We still need judges so if anybody is interested stop in at the Chamber of Commerce office and talk to me. We typically have 100 people take part in the parade and it usually lasts an hour. For the first year we have the Whitefish Winter Carnival float coming.”

There can’t be a town event without good food. Nordicfest offers a wide variety of food that will get the mouth watering.

“The food vendors all have to be non-profit,” she said. “They make a lot of their money that they use throughout the year at Nordicfest. The Knights of Columbus have that great Swedish Pancake Breakfast on Sunday morning. There is chicken on a stick. We have pie, ice cream, Viking on a stick, elephant ears and cotton candy. It’s a wide variety of food. There are uffda dogs, they are just like Polish sausages. The Assembly of God church members make the best zucchini relish. People go crazy for that relish. We have lefsa, which is a Norwegian food staple.”

Peppenger said the best thing about Nordicfest is the fact that it has something for every member of the family to enjoy.

“We have such a wide variety of things that offers something for everybody in the family,” she said. “There is the parade, the quilt show and the Runnerfell Race for children.”

Due to the surrounding forest fires some of the events that have happened in years past at the annual event won’t be taking place this year.

“The Scandinavian Smorgasbord will not be happening this year,” she said. “The people that do it are out fighting fires right now.”

One of the events that used to be a big draw that won’t be back this year is the Fjord horse show.

“The horse show isn’t coming anymore,” she said. “They made the decision not to come here. It wasn’t our decision. They were always a big draw and we are sick about it. It’s really too bad that they will no longer be coming here. I receive a lot of calls asking about the horse show and unfortunately I have to tell them that it will not longer be part of Nordicfest.”

Although Nordicfest lost the Fjord horse show, Peppenger is optimistic about the event moving forward. Thanks to some new blood on the Nordicfest committee there may be some new events for next year’s event.

“We keep talking about doing a meatball eating contest,” she said. “But we didn’t do it this year. Maybe next year we will do it. We are always looking for ideas. If somebody has something they think would be cool let us know and we will work on it. We didn’t do the film festival this year, but we are working on getting that back. We picked up some younger board members. Who knows what next year will bring. We may have all sorts of new stuff.”

Despite the event not being as big as it once was, Peppenger said people will still enjoy themselves due to the welcoming environment at Nordicfest.

“We are happy with what we have and the people are excited about what we have,” she said. “We have a wonderful outdoor entertainment this year. We will treat them like kings and queens. They will get to see a bit of Scandinavian culture. It may not be as big as it once was, but we work really hard to put it on for the community. Hopefully we can keep it going.”