How Winter Fest got rebooted

This year’s Winter Fest is the second-year reboot of a long-forgotten event that was once held in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Heidi Prestwood was cleaning out a garage when she found coffee mugs that read “Sparta Winter Fest.”

Intrigued, she talked to some older people in the community, and put in calls with the state tourism department and others to figure out what the event was.

“It started as a qualifying race for the Iditarod dog sled race in Alaska. … But it didn’t last for more than a couple of years because Sparta wasn’t getting any snow,” she said.

She was determined to bring it back, but in a way that allowed for activities even if there wasn’t enough snow.

“We had to make it something that we can do in no snow or 10 feet of snow,” she said.

While last year’s event was put together in about six weeks, Prestwood had help from a bigger planning committee for this year’s event and they were able to offer other activities such as the chainsaw carvers.

“It keeps growing and growing, and everyone wants to be a part of it,” she said.