Harmony Fest

An annual event in downtown Three Rivers on the Sunday before Labor Day is Harmony Fest.  Main Street is closed off for a block with musicians at the south end and vendors' tents down both sides of the street to the north with food, crafts, and displays of local projects.  The middle of the street has picnic tables and plenty of space for putting your lawn chair up close to the bands while still leaving room for a "dance floor."  

I wish I had done this shot as a video so that you could hear and dance to the Gratitude Steel Band as these folks were!  Leading off the jam were the Waseppi Bluegrass Band.  After Gratitude came the blues from the Vincent Hays Project.  You can catch the whole lineup and learn more about Harmony Fest at the Harmony Fest Website.

a little history on a Monday morning

This will be a wordy photo blog today!  This historical sign is in the park on two of our rivers, the Rocky and the St. Joe.  It is the Rocky you see in the background.  Not mentioned here but just a block away is a very small historical plaque high on the wall of a building that commemorates the founding of Jesuit Mission here in 170l.  The Indians that LaSalle encountered might have included the Miami and the Potawatomi.  

It was the Potawatomi who were removed from this area of southwest Michigan in the 1830's although the Polkagon Band stayed.  They were Roman Catholic and acculturated because of the St. Joseph mission and were protected from removal by treaty. Their name derives from Chief Simon Pokagon, a famous Native American lecturer during the 1850s.  Refused tribal status under the Indian Reorganization Act (1934), their long struggle to gain federal recognition finally succeeded in 1994. With tribal offices located in Dowagiac, Michigan, the Pokagon are in the process of reacquiring a land base.  Their casino in New Buffalo, Four Winds, opened in 2007.

a doggy bridge in Three Rivers

You may recall my lament last week about lack of bridges in Fabius, so for this week's Sunday Bridges we wandered out of the township into downtown Three Rivers.  This pedestrian bridge crosses  the Rocky River, which has left the township half a mile back and is headed now for its junction with the St. Joseph River. The St. Joe then heads south for South Bend, Indiana, and then north again to empty itself into Lake Michigan at the twin cities of St. Joseph and Benton Harbor.  And it is the St. Joe that names this county in Michigan and South Bend's county as well. 

We were in town to participate in the Animal Rescue Fund's Doggy Wash.  ARF is a dedicated group of animal lovers who work to ensure the spaying of cats and dogs in the county.  Willow took part in this annual event for the first time and then got to wander the river's edge and cross the bridge.  Behind the bridge are the building backs of Three Rivers' one-block downtown district. 

With a cup of coffee in hand, explore more bridges at Louis la Vache's Sunday Bridges.