Partying in the Face of a Blizzard - Beaver Island Photo Gallery

St. Patrick’s Day on Beaver Island usually marks the beginning of spring, with the snow melting, beautiful sunny skies, bright green and orange all down main street, and a chance to reacquaint ourselves with all our friends–who we may not have recognized all winter under their heavy coats and hats. Mother nature had something different in store this year, with snow flying horizontally and visibility so low that you couldn’t see across the harbor, not to mention the end of the block.
But the few dozen people who were kept by the St. Pat’s Day Blizzard from getting to the Island, from employing their new strategy for the Tug, the Toss, or the Tumble outside the Shamrock, or from getting back to the grind on time did not keep the rest of the celebrants from declaring that they were having a wonderful time.
After all, there was much to do (besides bemoaning the weather.) There was live music at a different venue all three nights. The King and Queen were crowned: Tara Palmer and Paul Cole. Rich Gillespie acted as suave moderator and bon vivant for indoor games on Saturday afternoon, with the famed Fish Toss being reduced, for safety’s sake, to a Minnow Spit (only one contestant thought to dip their minnow in beer to get a little extra mileage.) The cart race took on new excitement as contestants careened around on the Shamrock’s beer dolly–with only one roll-over. And through it all an athletic masked man in a kilt came striding with impunity, playing lovely sweet tunes on his soggy bagpipes. Well, you had to imagine the mask.