Annual celebration of local natural phenomena in your area?

[OakLeaf]

Probably the closest to me is the Arbor Day celebration tomorrow at the arboretum. In September, within an hour or two's drive, we have a honey festival and a pawpaw festival - both of which have stayed true to their founding principles instead of turning into tacky flea markets as so many local festivals do. I've never been to the tomato festival (in the purported birthplace of tomato cultivation) or the blueberry festival. The one time I went to the violet festival years ago it was nothing but flea market, not surprising since I don't think there's any more commercial violet agriculture in Pickerington, though they've announced some better known musical acts for this year. Then obviously there are the county fairs and state fair. But as far as phenomena, rather than agriculture/horticulture/husbandry, around here it's institutions that put on events, not political subdivisions. So like the observatory has open telescope nights now and then, and special viewing events for things like comets or eclipses, or various lodges might have fall color events, etc.

[shootingstar]

What is a pawpaw festival?

We don't even have a local bison festival...bison is native to Alberta. I know it sounds carnivorous but remember it was part of the diet and culture of the Plains Indians across the prairies in Canada and US. Yes, the biggest protected herd of bison (900 head) is in national park 400 km. north of us. But it is easily raised on ranchland across Alberta compared to other parts of Canada.

We have chinook wind phenomena which are strong winds which bring in warm air that suddenly melt snow..and they can blow strong that causes very rapid temperature rise 15 - 20 degree C within 1 day. It can be nuts because of so much clothing to carry around while biking. So how does one celebrate chinook wind? OUr location is one of only 3 places in the world that experience this type of wind (partially comes off from nearby mountains). Well here's a manhole cover.

We don't celebrate the tiny prairie gophers that whistle, run around and noticeable in hilly ridges, to an ex-Ontarian/British Columbian like myself.

Though we get snowy winters (except for this year) we don't have an annual winter festival. I think we prefer to celebrate it in pure mountain lush deep white pure snow in the Rockies 100 km. north of us. East, Quebec City has Winterlude which seems to me, a slightly Quebecois flavour and bonhomie.

Sure we have a Lilac Weekend more as a retail business weekend rather than celebrating lilacs....which by the way, are rare in our City/prairies. There are swaths of lilac bushes and trees in southern Ontario along roads and in neighbourhoods.

[Crankin]

New England has to be the queen of places with these types of festivals. They are put on by every small town and cities, celebrating all kinds of things. We have lilac festivals, strawberry festivals, blueberry festivals, oyster festivals, harvest festivals, and festivals celebrating various historic time periods. There is a colonial type festival that I remembered going to as a child, at the Old Grist Mill in Sudbury (I've posted pictures of this place). About 11-12 years ago, I was out riding with my friend and we happened on this same festival, in September. So, many of these things have been going on for years.

[OakLeaf]

What is a pawpaw?

Pawpaw (Wikipedia)

It's the largest and most common fruit tree native to North America, grows wild all over the place, east of the Mississippi (and in the western Mississippi valley) from southern Canada to Florida. It's absolutely delicious, and easy to eat (a spoon makes it easier to dig out the flesh around the large seeds). And yet ... in less than 100 years since people started buying rather than foraging or growing most of their food, a fruit that has a relatively short ripeness window and travels very poorly due to thin skin and soft flesh, has become virtually unknown.

[shootingstar]

I've never seen pawpaw as a local thing in southern Ontario and southern B.C., where I've lived for quite a number of years. They are the warmest regions of Canada. And I've eaten a broad range of things.

Saskatoon berry is native to some Canadian prairie provinces. But even though it's grown locally here, it still is abit more expensive than blueberries (from British Columbia. Blueberries don't grow in the prairies nor blackberries.). So having a festival for Saskatoon berry may not be financially sustainable and it's not harvested in huge volumes like other temperate climate berries. But we treasure it here, for pies ...and for home, when we make a lovely red wine Saskatoon berry sauce for seared bison. It's delicious, elegant....and local. Sometimes gourmet local ice creams use it for unique ice cream. To me, it's local and special-exotic still, because it's done so infrequently....like lichee gelato.

I understand for marketing purposes it's renamed as juneberry in Minnesota, etc. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskat...-u-s-1.2744433

What I'm trying to say...that sometimes locals who have lived for 2-3 generations in the same region, take for granted too much of their local uniqueness and local natural food abundance, that it becomes ho-hum unless they have lived elsewhere in the world for several yrs.

[OakLeaf]

Yeah I don't think pawpaw grow in BC. Or, as I said, much west of the Mississippi (or the northern extension of that river into Canada and Minnesota) at all.

Marketing? I knew them as Juneberries in the 1970s and I've never, ever heard of anyone selling them! Or cultivating, either, only foraging. That seems to be what the article you linked to said, that to the extent people in the US know them at all, they know them as Juneberries. But it certainly rolls off the tongue better, too.

And, it seems to me the opposite. That food has become so homogenized that no one eats anything any more that can't be harvested at least two to three weeks before consumption and transported long distances - whether or not it's grown seasonally where those people happen to live. Like smilingcat was saying about the guy who was looking for out-of-season fruit from her farm, and couldn't understand why she can't just pick one each of whatever the grocery store has. It's really what the slow food movement is about - that people have become so alienated from their local foodsheds. It's funny how as kids, we all heard that song from the Disney Jungle Book that references pawpaws, and we probably sang "Where oh where is dear little Susie? / ... Way down yonder in the pawpaw patch," without ever wondering what a pawpaw was.

And nuts ... hickories and butternuts, delicious but so difficult to eat. Even black walnuts, which are really just too strong flavored for me, are way more popular than hickories. I've got a woodlot full of both and don't eat any of them - the black walnuts because I don't care for them, and the hickories because an 8# sledge is just too much work for a little bit of nutmeat, no matter how good it is!