Port Oneida Fair

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Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore conducts a two day turn of the century country fair during the second Friday and Saturday of August each year. The park is actively looking for demonstrators who make or conduct acitivities that would have been found in the Great Lakes Region from 1880 to 1945. Some funds are available to help with transportation is traveling great distances, hauling live animals, or large pieces of equipment. Demonstrators should make prior contact with the park representative before assuming you meet this criteria as the Port Oneida Fair Committee reviews each applicant for appropriateness for the fair and to issue an invitation to demonstrate and receive payment. Some demonstrators are not paid, but can sell all items that they make as part of their demonstration. No table fee is charged for demonstrators.

The Port Oneida Fair is held in the Port Oneida Rural Historic District 4 miles north of Glen Arbor, Michigan along M-22. The fair attracts 5000 visitors over the two day event and includes music and dancing, food, humanities scholars, farmers' market, blacksmithing, timber framing, rope making, butter churning, candle making, quilt making, Bee Keeping, Civil War and WWII Encampments, horse and wagon rides, oxen mowing fields, hand-made hay baling and hay stacking, local art and Native American markets, traditional foods, and seed opportunities.

There is no charge for the event, though a park pass is required in all areas of the national lakeshore.

Volunteers are also required to help direct guests, park cars, attend to trash, help demonstrators set up and tear down, and hand out brochures and stickers.