River of Time canceled this year but keep an eye out for historical reenactors strolling around Bay City - MLive.com

BAY CITY, MI - History lovers will have to wait one more year to stroll through the annual River of Time Festival in Bay City after organizers announced that the 2021 event was canceled.

The annual event showcases various time periods and historical events, ranging from celebrating Native American Culture from the Civil War up to the Vietnam War. Historical reenactors and vendors set up camp at Veteran’s Memorial Park, across from the Bay County Community Center on Bay City’s West Side every year during the last week of September for the River of Time.

However, River of Time reenactors and organizers are currently contending with navigating and living through historic times themselves over the last two years as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic continues. The event was also canceled back in 2020 during the first year of the pandemic.

“We felt pretty confident that with us being an outdoor event that we were going to be able to move forward this year but basically with the gathering restrictions that are still in place, which we have no idea what time those would change or they could even go backward at this point, there is no way that we could accommodate that number of people down at the park,” said Shannon Rodriguez, River of Time Committee chairperson.

Organizers were also unable to secure insurance for the event, said Rodriguez, due to most carriers not writing policy for events at this time due to gathering restrictions.

According to Rodriguez, the event normally attracts up to 15,000 people. Each year the event is open on Friday prior to the actual public event to schoolchildren for a special learning experience. Rodriguez said that the 2019 event saw the largest turnout that organizers had ever seen, with upwards of 5,000 students walking through the River of Time.

She added that the fact that the event is held in a public park made crowd control and capacity limits impossible to enforce in adherence with COVID-19 guidelines.

“Additionally, the way the park is set up with the Riverwalk we can’t obstruct that access so we have no way of controlling flow in and out of the park and cap off a certain amount of people or anything like that,” she said.

History lovers won’t be completely out of luck this year, however. River of Time treasurer Josh Tuzas developed a plan to keep the annual event and history in the public eye. Historical reenactors will be walking around Bay City this summer on the weekends.

“Please be sure to strike up a conversation, learn a little history, and maybe make a donation. Until we can gather in the park again, we need the community’s support to make sure we can put on the event you have come to know and love,” said a statement from the River of Time organizers.

Tuzas came up with the idea when he and some other reactors decided to take a walk around the Tobico Marsh trail in Bay County while donning historical regalia. Tuzas said that he was dressed for the Korean War period with his son dressed for World War II. The two were joined with a handful of Vietnam War reenactors. While walking the trail and seeing the response from other walkers, Tuzas decided to make this an ongoing occurrence.

“When we had a lot of people asking us where the reenactment was going on it gave me the idea on each walk to try out different locations around the city,” he said.

While he doesn’t have a firm schedule set yet, Tuzas said that he is planning on having reenactors walk around town all summer long. Walking around town is also giving reenactors to get out and share their craft after two years of event cancelations.

“We spent a year trapped in our backyards. And we actually had some of our army canvas set up for several months in that thing yard” said Tuzas.

Meanwhile, River of Time organizers are working on planning some other smaller fundraising opportunities this year. Rodriguez added that the cancellation has given the group some extra time to work on fundraising to make the River of Time’s post-COVID comeback bigger and better than before.

“So hopefully with the added fundraising time, that will give us an opportunity to draw in some bigger acts and some bigger names and just really flush out the event and make up for these past two years,” she said.

Rodriguez and Tuzas both expressed a determination to let the public know that the River of Time isn’t going anywhere permanently and that it will be back.

“We are grateful for our community loving the event and wanting to continue to support us,” Rodriguez said. “I just really want to reassure them that we’re definitely coming back as soon as we don’t have any restrictions in place. We’ll be back and bigger and better than ever.”

Tuzas added, “We still want to put together the best show possible. And attract people from all over the state to come in also spend their money at the local businesses and rebuild the tourist market. And of course above all learn a little bit of history of the Bay Region and the state and its contributions throughout history.”

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