Fair on

It’s not every day that a village turns into a city.

But as the 15 th Kakabeka Street Fair kicked off Saturday, that’s exactly what was set to happen as more than 30,000 people are expected to pack the village’s main drag and surrounding area.

“It’s going phenomenally so far,” organizer Marlis Bommes-Dudzinski said as a live band jammed away on her Kakabeka Falls Hotel parking lot Saturday afternoon. “(There are) lots of different things going on.”

Vendors and people packed both sides of the street from one end of the village to the other. The smell of food, the sounds of music and children taking in every imaginable activity could be heard all around.

Once past the crafts, artisan and charity tents a whole other section of the fair opens up as the local schoolyard is transformed into a midway, complete with a ferris wheel and even the Zipper.

The fair started as a community project in 1997 to try and promote tourism for the area. Because there are plans for the highway to one day bypass Kakabeka, Bommes-Dudzinski said it’s important for the community to make Kakabeka a destination. But she never thought the fair would be this well attended.

“It just got bigger and bigger every year,” she said. “There’s so much going on.”

The fair also helps boost sales for local businesses.

“The economic push for this weekend helps some of our businesses survivor for the winter,” she said.

Activities go until 11 p.m. Saturday before starting all over again Sunday when it wraps up at 6 p.m.