The Barachois performing at the Hiawatha Music Festival in 2001. (Photo courtesy of the Marquette Regional History Center)

“There is immense power when a group of people with similar interests gets together to work toward the same goals.” — Idowu Koyenikan, Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability

MARQUETTE — A co-operative is an organization which is jointly owned and democratically controlled by its members. The members voluntarily unite to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations while sharing the profits or benefits.

Marquette is fortunate to have a number of co-ops, including the Marquette Food Co-op, Drifa Brewing Company, Zero Degrees Gallery, and even a rock-climbing co-op, the Marquette Climbers Cooperative.

Another long-lasting co-op in Marquette is the Hiawatha Music Non-Profit Corporation, which was established in 1979 to put on an annual traditional music festival.

Inspired by the Wheatland Festival in Remus, Michigan, which had begun five years earlier, a group of people from Deerton, Munising, and Marquette began organizing a local festival.

Funded by bake sales, basketball games, dances, and a mini-festival in Munising, the “first annual” Hiawatha Music Festival was held on the horse-pulling grounds in Champion in August 1979 with around 1,200 attendees.

Five years later, looking for more shaded camping, easier access, and better weather, the festival moved to the Marquette Tourist Park, settling on a date of the next-to-last weekend in July. The performers include Americana, bluegrass, Cajun, old-timey, blues, and other roots music traditions.

Some are nationally recognized Grammy winners; others are local favorites. But for many, the heart of the festival is the informal jams around campfires that go late into the evening.

From the beginning, the festival has had a family emphasis, with special programming for children, including a wonderful Sunday afternoon children’s parade featuring instruments the children have made over the weekend. Many children from those first festivals are now bringing their own children and grandchildren. Recent years have seen more than 4,000 participants, with 140+ musicians, dancers, and artists.

In addition to the children’s area, the festival now has multiple workshops, a dance tent, an art show, and food venders. One of the most popular traditions is the Sunday Morning Gospel Hour which takes place in the dance tent.

At this event, main stage and local performers do sets of traditional and non-denominational Gospel songs. It is a cross between a revival meeting and a hootenanny and is very well attended each year.

Hiawatha is cooperatively organized by many volunteer committees. The music committee begins discussing and selecting artists in October. By February, all of the artists have been scheduled and confirmed, which gives the workshop committee time to plan its activities.

Other committees include stage set-up, vendor’s area, information tent, volunteers, the Green Team (garbage and recycling), security, ticketing, camping, and many others.

All of the activities of these committees and areas are monitored by the part-time executive director, who is the only paid staff member at the festival. Each area has a coordinator and several monitors.

At the festival itself, more than 400 people volunteer in dozens of areas. The efforts of all these people not only make the festival possible but also make Hiawatha a true “people’s” festival.

The co-op now also has year-around programming, including regular concerts and monthly jams held at the Hiawatha “Fold” in the Village Shopping Center on Third Street. In December Hiawatha invites the other Marquette co-ops to the Fold for a joint holiday sale, celebrating their unique governance structure.

The 44th Hiawatha Traditional Music Festival will be held on July 19-21, 2024, at Tourist Park in Marquette. To learn more about other co-operative organizations, visit the Marquette Regional History Center’s new special exhibit Consumer Co-operatives in the Central Upper Peninsula: A Middle Way. The central UP (Marquette, Alger, Delta, and Dickinson Counties) has an extensive history of organizing consumer co-operatives, dating back to the late 1880s.

This exhibit outlines how co-ops were involved in more than just selling goods. They have been active in local politics, aiding strikers, advocating for food safety, supporting immigrants, fostering communities, and fighting against other injustices faced by the working class.

Co-ops offered an option between traditional capitalist stores and a socialized economy. The exhibit runs from Jan. 29 to April 27.