September 11-12, 2021
The Grand Marais Rock and Mineral Show will be held the weekend after Labor Day at the community center located at E21738 Brazel Street. Show hours are Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The entrance fee is $2 per attendee; children 12 and under are free.
This year all attendees will need to enter the show through the pole barn’s south entrance, located on Brazel Street. During parts of the show, the east gate will also be available, located to the east of the community center.
The event will be held rain or shine. The rock show will include exhibit booths inside the pole barn as well as outside in the baseball field. Food vendors will be onsite throughout the show. They will be set up in the grassy area behind the community center and east of the pole barn. This area will be available to both show attendees and dealers as well as to the general public who may also want to purchase food and beverages from the food trucks.
There will also be silent auctions, 50/50 raffles, a keynote dinner and speech on Saturday night, and possible music during the show from the bandstand behind the pole barn.
This show was originally started a decade ago at Muskallonge Lake State Park, located 20 miles east of Grand Marais, Mich. The show grew so much that state park staff two years ago decided it was too large for them to continue. Thus, a group in Grand Marais decided to take on the challenge.
The first show was held in Grand Marais on September 7-8, 2019. Over 1,500 people attended the first show over the course of the weekend. To honor the decade-long effort of the Muskallonge Lake staff, the name “rock-on festival” was continued for the first year. However, some attendees showed up expecting a music concert, so the name was changed this year to the Grand Marais Rock and Mineral Show.
The objectives for the rock show are to:
- Provide a venue for rockhounds to feed their passion, purchase specimens and other related items, and increase their understanding of rocks and minerals.
- Attract visitors to Grand Marais in a slower tourism week situated between the summer season (ending on Labor Day) and before the fall color season.
- Provide a venue for dealers to sell their rock and mineral items.
- Generate excess revenue to be used for community benefit projects. The first project will be to build a wheelchair-accessible path from the boardwalk on agate beach to the Lake Superior shoreline.
Unfortunately, due to Covid 19 restrictions, the rock show was cancelled in 2020. Even though the virus is still among us, the advisory committee decided to hold the show in 2021 with some mitigation efforts in place. There will be fewer booths inside the pole barn, which will be spread out to encourage social distancing. Some of the dealers who exhibited inside during the 2019 have decided to move outside.
Masks will be encouraged for all inside activities, and may be required if the Delta virus threat worsens. Other mitigation efforts may be put in place if new state and federal requirements are enacted.
Unlike the first show, there will not be speakers giving inside educational talks all weekend long – there will only be a keynote speaker on Saturday night. The Grand Marais Women’s Club will again be organizing and serving the Keynote Address Dinner, which will take place at 5:30 pm. Only 80 dinner tickets will be sold ($17 per person).
There are still tickets available as of this writing, which can be purchased at www.grandmaraisrockandmineralshow.com. Anyone can purchase dinner tickets and stay for the keynote address, even if you do not attend the actual show. This year the dinner includes either vegetarian or meat lasagna, salad, roll, dessert, and beverages.
After the dinner, Karen Brzys will give the keynote address: Rocks Inside Out. This talk will help attendees to better understand, appreciate, and identify rocks found on local beaches. For those wishing to attend the show and stay in Grand Marais, there is a campground next to the community center. All online advance reservations are sold out, but there may be other sites available on a first-come basis.
Information about other accommodations in town can be found at www.grandmaraismichigan.com.
This is truly a community event. Dozens of businesses and organizations have provided financial support and donated items for our silent auction. The sponsors and donating businesses are listed at www.grandmaraisrockandmineralshow.com, as well as on Facebook, www.facebook.com/grandmaraisrockshow.
If you would like to be a financial sponsor, or if you would like to donate item(s) to our silent auction, please contact Karen at karen@agatelady.com.
