The Foxfire Mountaineer Festival is a one-day celebration of the rich heritage of the Southern Appalachian mountains, featuring traditional music from numerous regional performers, showcases and demonstrations of time-honored heritage skills and trades, and all manner of traditional games and puzzles for young and old alike.
The Festival also honors the people of Southern Appalachia, represented at the event by the some of the kind folks who have shared their lives and experiences with Foxfire students since 1966, allowing their stories to be shared with the world through the pages of The Foxfire Magazine and The Foxfire Book series.
Regular admission is $5 per person with children 5 and under free. All proceeds go to The Foxfire Fund, Inc. and support our many educational programs at our museum and in our schools.
Go ahead and plan on making a day of it — lunch won’t be a problem, with a variety of food choices from local and regional vendors. There will be top-notch bluegrass and a bit of gospel music on stage throughout the day, ranging from true traditional to more-current styles, but all mountain-grown, through and through. Keeping the old skills alive, the regional artisans will be exhbiting their work as well as demonstrating their mastery of heritage skills such as woodworking, blacksmithing, folk pottery, textile crafts, and many others. The outdoor field events will give you more adventurous visitors a chance to see how you would fare in the mountains of old, with physical and mental challenges from the past: brute-strength and endurance contests like wood-chopping and log-sawing, skill and speed trials like archery and greased-pig chases, and simple schoolyard fun like three-legged relays and sack races.