Heritage Fest combines with Civil War Days in 'green' event

This year the annual Chesapeake Heritage Arts Festival goes blue, gray and green.

Taking place this weekend at City Park, the yearly examination of life, skills, technology, and culture in Chesapeake from Colonial days up to the Industrial Revolution, adds the Civil War as it becomes conscious of the environment.

"The event's gone green," said Sally B. Triolet, a special events coordinator and recreation specialist with the sponsoring Chesapeake Parks and Recreation Department. "This festival is now a 'Virginia Green Event' with the state's DEQ (Virginia Department of Environmental Quality). That means we're environmentally friendly. For example, we will follow the campaign's core activities: there will be no Styrofoam cups, there will be recycling bins throughout the park to encourage the practice, and, in lieu of brochures that waste paper and have the potential to create litter, we'll have extensive event signage."

"Virginia Green" is the commonwealth's campaign "to promote environmentally-friendly practices in all aspects of the state's tourism industry, " which includes reducing the amount of waste taken to landfills, promote car-pooling and increase recycling awareness.

And while organizers and visitors alike engage in a green campaign, they will also experience a historic campaign that once tore this country apart.

A component of the Chesapeake Public Library's Civil War Days is marching to City Park for its Heritage Arts Festival debut. The city's public library system held the annual event in and around the Central Library.

The event grew in scope and popularity until it began to tax the library's resources, space, staff and volunteers. The last few Civic War Days drew an estimated 15,000 annually.

"It's been so much work, and always, our goal was to keep it fresh and new, and, I think, we've reached our limit with the little space and resources we have," Phyllis Schirle, director of library programming and public relations, said last year when the library decided to call the retreat.

So, after a successful 15-year run at the Central Library, the event blew taps at its Cedar Road home and will now set up camp at City Park. Taking over such a worthwhile event was important, said Parks and Recreation Director Bobby Clifton.

"The library could no longer do it, they were going to shut it down," Clifton said. "And we didn't want to let it go. We think City Park would be a better space for it. It has space to grow and expand. We expect to move it forward and have it grow at City Park."

Triolet said Heritage Arts will take on the Civil War slowly, it will not take in the entire event lock, stock and smoking musket.

"This event had an amazing growth at the library, it went from a parking lot and it spread to take over its surrounding area and the library inside," she said. "The library did such an impressive job for us, we don't want to compete with that or try to outdo that. This is a transition. We're bringing in a strong event and we'll watch it grow at City Park."

Clifton said he hopes visitors won't expect the same grand scale the library offered the last few years.

"We don't have the resources to start off such an event with the same magnitude," he said. "In reality, we will present it on a smaller scale. Our goal is not to better the library but to save it and build on it. We may take criticism for it, we could have let it go and taken the easy way out, but we think this is worth saving and it fits in perfectly with our Heritage Arts."

For this year, City Park will be divided into the Civil War area and the agrarian arts space, divided by the main road that wends it way through the park.

The Civil War part will include historic living encampments manned by eight different Union and Confederate re-enactment groups. For now, there will be no skirmishes.

Participating Civil War groups will include the Naval Rope Works, the Signal Corps of the James, the Tidewater Maritime Living History Association, Co. A of the 79th New York State Volunteers, 15th Virginia Cavalry, and 3rd Virginia Infantry.

And while Johnny Reb and Billy Yank discuss their life and times with the public, patrons will still be able to take in the festival's acoustic music performances, sheep shearing and herding demonstrations, an array of pre-Industrial Revolution crafters and skills to include weavers, blacksmiths, spinners, knitters, lacers and potters along with furniture, instrument and basket makers.

For the kiddies there will be a hay maze, wagon rides, period games, a farm animal display and a craft tent to be run by volunteers with Girl Scout Troop 879, who will lead children in the creation of Civil War dolls, yarn dolls, spinning tops and other diversions from bygone days.

We're just tickled to death," Triolet said. "With the addition to the Civil War, we know this event will continue to bloom and grow."

Eric Feber, 222-5203,

eric.feber@pilotonline.com