Fiddles and snowshoes focus of festival

"NORWAY — Dozens of people from Norway to Windham and beyond participated
Saturday in the first annual Mellie Dunham Snowshoe and Fiddle Festival.

The event was highlighted by snowshoe competitions at the Roberts Farm Preserve in the morning and an afternoon of fiddling and contradancing at the Grange Hall with the Don Roy Trio, including Roy, Pam Weeks and Bill Olson.

“It's a lot of fun,” said Lona (Noble) Bedard, granddaughter of Mellie Dunham, clapping to the beat of the fiddle music. Bedard sat in the Grange Hall where her grandfather played his fiddle hundreds of times a century ago.

“We're off to a good start,” said Ben Tucker of the event that organizers hope will become an annual celebration of one of Norway's most famous residents. Mellie Dunham, who died in 1931 at the age of 78, was a master snowshoe maker and a nationally known fiddler who was selected by Henry Ford to promote traditional fiddle and dance music across the country in the 1920s."

Fiddles and snowshoes focus of festival | Oxford Hills: