Port Elgin’s famous Pumpkinfest is taking place this weekend.
After doing an online festival due to the pandemic last year, 2021 will be more like pre-pandemic years.
Bruce County’s biggest festival brings pumpkin, gourd, sunflower and vegetable growers from all over Ontario and Quebec to town to compete in weigh offs and measurements.
The festival will have its Pumpkinfest Village at Goderich and Gustavus Streets this year with midway rides and activities as well as snack vendors and craft vendors.
The Bruce Power Giant Vegetable Weigh Off will take place on site, but won’t be open to spectators. Instead, it will be simulcast online and broadcast live to a jumbotron outdoors in Pumpkinfest Village.
Last year’s pumpkin winner was a 1,939.50 lb pumpkin grown by Phil and Jane Lyons and Chris Hunt from Cameron, Ontario.
2020’s heaviest squash was 1,288 lbs belonging to Todd Kline of Shawville, Quebec
The heaviest pumpkin winner is awarded $3,000 and the heaviest squash $1,500.
The prize structure for this year will also include tallest sunflower, largest sunflower face and tallest corn, returning categories include heaviest watermelon, longest gourd, heaviest field pumpkin, tomato, bushel gourd, marrow, cabbage, cantaloupe, and mangel wurzel (variety of beet).
The celebrity seed spitting competition is virtual this year and will be broadcast online Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound MPP Bill Walker won last year’s at 38 feet.
There will also be a live car show, a virtual one and a fall colour car show tour. The live car show on Goderich Street (Highway 21) from Gustavus Street to Market Street is set for Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Registration for cars is now closed.
The Sunday fall colour tour is set to start at 11a.m. outside Vanderwerf’s Your Independent Grocer in Port Elgin.
There will also be an online star search talent show and virutal pumpkin dance routine submissions.
Masks will be required. There will be limitations on the number of people allowed in Pumpkinfest Village, though it is 5,000 at a time, and 4,000 for the car show. Admission is by donation.
See more online at https://www.pumpkinfest.org/
