The beer hall at the Maine Lakes Winter Carnival. Don Anderson, second from left, provided live music. Rory Sweeting / Lakes Region Weekly
Fun for all ages was had at the Maine Lakes Winter Carnival in Bridgton on Saturday, Feb. 15, along with other events taking place throughout the weekend.
Representatives of Great Atlantic Puffin Co., a local cannabis dispensary, had a place at the Winter Carnival. Rory Sweeting / Lakes Region Weekly
According to organizer Jeff Harriman, of the Greater Bridgton Chamber of Commerce, the winter carnival has been going on for 82 years. In addition to the main festival, which was held on the shores of Highland Lake, several events associated with the carnival took place throughout Bridgton. The previous night, Magic Lantern Movie Theater and Bridgton House of Pizza hosted the third annual Ice Queen Beauty Pageant. On the morning of Feb. 15, Stevens Brook Elementary school played host to a pancake breakfast, a craft and vendor fair, and a children’s talent show, and the town offices opened their ice rink to interested families for the duration of the carnival.
On Saturday, Highland Lake was frozen to the point where several dozen snowmobiles could safely be parked on its surface. One of the major events at the lake was Freezing for a Reason, a polar plunge held as a charity drive for the Harvest Hills Animal Shelter in Fryeburg.
The main fairgrounds were also home to various vendors and food stands, ax throwing, a kid-friendly ice fishing derby, a beer garden and live music organized by Campfire Grille, and a rail jam hosted by Pleasant Mountain. The climax of the carnival was a fireworks show, held at 6 p.m. over the lake.
A horse-drawn carriage took families on a ride across Bridgton. Rory Sweeting / Lakes Region Weekly
Don Anderson, a local country rock cover artist, provided musical entertainment for those at the beer garden. According to Anderson, who has played at a number of venues in Bridgton and beyond, Campfire Grille reached out to him and asked him to play at the carnival. Anderson told the Lakes Region Weekly that the songs he played were ones he had grown up listening to and that he felt most reflected him as an artist and a person.
“Every song that I play has an emotion in it one time or another,” Anderson said.
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