This year's Forest Fall Fair is giving the Sarnia-Lambton community something to get excited about.
That's according to Gord Marsh, the vice president of the Forest Fair Board.
Marsh told Blackburn News that the return of the event, set for this weekend, has a lot of people excited.
"It's a special thing for us to be able to do for our community. Giving people a place to come together and see family and friends they haven't seen for years... I think it's a special thing and we feel privileged to be able to provide that," he said. "We've had a lot of traffic on our website and on our Facebook page and a lot of email questions and queries coming from people all over the area."
Marsh said it's supposed to be the 150th anniversary of the fair, but the group wanted to host that milestone next year so it can be an unrestricted event.
"We're billing [this year] as our 149th-and-a-half fair," he said. "Our midway will be smaller than what we're normally used to, one of our cattle shows isn't going ahead and our miniature horse show isn't going ahead. Other than that, everything else will be operating as per normal."
The fair board decided to go ahead with planning the event earlier this summer, after the 2021 Petrolia and Enniskillen, Plympton-Wyoming and Brigden fall fairs were all cancelled.
Marsh said the last few months of planning have been very stressful.
"We've had a shortened window to plan the fair, plus all of the additional health unit restrictions we've had to work through and implement has made it quite stressful."
Marsh said masks will only be required indoors and that patrons will not have to provide proof of vaccination against COVID-19.
For more information on the event, click here.
