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Headliners in no hurry to leave River and Sky fest

Long and his bandmate Logan Kroeber were late additions to the River and Sky lineup after Vancouver band Pink Mountaintops had to drop out of the Friday headlining slot.
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Bison Billy and the Rodeo Clowns from Sudbury entertain on the grounds of the River and Sky festival in Field this past weekend. Besides music, the event included a number of family friendly activities. Photo by Jonathan Migneault.

Long and his bandmate Logan Kroeber were late additions to the River and Sky lineup after Vancouver band Pink Mountaintops had to drop out of the Friday headlining slot.


Both musicians were on vacation when their Canadian booking agent called and asked if they wanted to book a last-minute flight to Toronto and fly four hours north to the festival grounds, along the banks of the Sturgeon River in Field.

“I was on vacation with my family in Santa Barbara, visiting my grandma,” said Kroeber, the band's drummer.

The offer was intriguing enough for them to cancel the vacation in order to play the small, but growing, festival.

That decision turned out to be a good one, Long said.

“From our previous experiences at festivals, we just want to get in and get out,” he said.

“Now that we're here we're just like, 'Why did we get our tickets for tomorrow? We should have stayed the whole weekend.' That's the first time that's ever happened.”

That reaction is one Peter Zwarich, River and Sky's founder and director, has heard many times before.
When the festival first started six years ago, attendees faced a torrential downpour the entire weekend.
Zwarich and his fellow organizers did not recoup their costs that year.

When it was over, he drove to North Bay to return some equipment he had rented, and listened to a radio documentary about Journey's rock anthem “Don't Stop Believin'.”

“I take my cues from radio songs so I just kept going,” Zwarich said.

Later that day, he had dinner with his family in a North Bay restaurant, and overheard people at the next table talk about how they had just had the best weekend of their lives at his festival.

Zwarich has been within earshot of similar comments almost every year since, he said.

“It's become kind of what I hope it would become,” Zwarich said about River and Sky. “It's very much community oriented. The festival has so many major inputs of energy from really involved people.”

Like last year, weekend passes for the 2014 edition sold out long before gates opened at the Fisher's Paradise campground the festival calls home.

The festival has expanded beyond music, and showcases Northern Ontario food vendors, artistic organizations and the region's boreal forest.

As the festival grows in popularity, Zwarich said he is committed to keep things small.

“There's always the impetus for big,” he said. “I was never a big concert fan. I always had the greatest times going to the Townehouse Tavern and being five feet away from the band.”

Andrew Elgee, a River and Sky member and a program officer with Heritage Canada, said as the festival grows in popularity organizers will need to implement limitations – whether it be through ticket sales or space – to maintain River and Sky's intimate and community-oriented environment.

Those limitations were already in place this year when campers were asked to park their cars away from the campsites.

Volunteers with the Sudbury Cyclists Union helped festival goers carry their camping gear with small bicycle trailers that fit right in with the festival's sustainable mindset.

For Elgee, it's that connection to Northern Ontario's natural environment, and a commitment to sustainability, that separates River and Sky from most other festivals in Canada.

“Not that other arts organizations and festivals don't do that, but it's really part of a bigger vision that the festival has to make music accessible to people, but also allow everyone to connect back with nature,” he said.


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Jonathan Migneault

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