Submitted by the staff of the Orillia Museum of Art & History (OMAH)
While we are looking forward to heading to Tudhope Park this July for the 2024 Mariposa Folk Festival, we wanted to look back at its history as written by Mike Hill, the Mariposa Folk Festival’s artistic director from 2007 to 2018.
Founded in Orillia in 1961, the Mariposa Folk Festival went through many incarnations and changes on its way to celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2010.
It moved away from Orillia in 1964 (after an infamous near riot the year before) and set up in Toronto, Caledon, Toronto Islands, Harbourfront, Barrie, Ontario Place, Cobourg, Bracebridge and finally back to Orillia in 2000.
It was a shaky start returning to its hometown but eventually the crowds came back and word spread that Orillia, the host of this greatest of all Canadian folk festivals, was the place to be.
Orillia was the beneficiary of not only a great music event each year for its residents, but the festival also proved to be a multi-million-dollar money maker for the businesses and residents of our community.
Since the early 1990s, a music compilation on compact disc (CD) has been produced each year to showcase the performers and to let the attendees "take the festival home with them.” The lineup for the 50th anniversary not only reflected the current state of folk music but it also paid some homage to the festival’s past.
Folk music has always been acoustic-based music, but the genre also includes the blues, country, spoken word, folk-rock and variations as different as the performers themselves.
The CD for the 50th anniversary event, an integral part of the festival’s tradition, featured a cover designed by Travis Shilling. The entire package is not only a remarkable souvenir of a grand festival but a tribute to the volunteers — over 500 annually — from Orillia who labour long and hard to put on such a wonderful event.
Next week, we will feature another object from the OMAH collection that showcases our local history.
