The White Lake Chamber & Visitor's Bureau sparked excitement in 2025 when it announced that the White Lake Maritime Festival, a one-time fixture of the community calendar, will return this summer.
At the time, Chamber executive director Stephanie Ware thought the 2026 festival might determine whether future Maritime Festivals took place, but in the aftermath of the announcement it became clear the fervor for its return was such that Maritime is likely back to stay.
"To be honest, ever since I started at the Chamber in late 2021, I had heard, 'Are you bringing back Maritime?'" Ware said. "I would look it up and thought it was a pretty cool event. I thought 2026 would be a good year to bring it back, being America's 250th anniversary. I went to my board and said, 'Do I want to do this?' They were very supportive and said to go for it. I learned very quickly it's not going to be a one-year thing.
"People want it to come back and to succeed. They've offered to help and jumped in...The thing I kept hearing was that it was a big class reunion for the community. You'd see people who have been here a long time and see people that are visiting."
Ware said the festival, a summer celebration of White Lake and the activities it offers, began in 1981, "was at its peak" in the 1980s and 1990s and continued through 2012 before it departed the calendar.
The festival, slated for Aug. 6-8, will bring back old community favorites like the wooden boat show, and it will consolidate some recent additions to the summer calendar into the one weekend, making it a days-long celebration of the area. The home base for much of the weekend will be a food and beverage tent at Goodrich Park in Whitehall.
Planning an entire festival is a daunting task, but Ware said she's received a lot of help from the community. Organizations from around the area are pitching in. The White Lake Association, for instance, is overseeing the wooden boat show that's a traditional part of the festival.
The White Lake Snow Farmers' Float-a-Palooza is among the events moving to be part of Maritime. In the past few years, the attempt to break the world record for the largest connected flotilla has taken place the weekend prior to Labor Day, but it being a water-based event made it a natural fit to be part of Maritime. The Snow Farmers will continue to oversee that event.
The Montague-Whitehall Rotary Club's Bacon, Bloodys and Brews fundraising event, which took place last June, will also shift dates to be part of Maritime.
Another part of Maritime will be the community picnic, which will take place in its regular time slot the first Thursday of August. Newer White Lake residents may not know that the picnic, now annually staged by HarborLight Credit Union, originated as the kickoff party for the festival.
"There's a sailboat regatta happening as well, which used to happen in the old Maritime," Ware said. "It'll be different this year than it was then, of course, because the lake looks different."
In all, Maritime this year will likely consist of six or seven major events, Ware said, with local organizations and businesses welcomed to participate in whichever way they'd like. WaterDog Outfitters is likely to provide an activity, and both libraries and the Arts Council of White Lake-Nuveen Center are planning family-geared activities to take place at the Montague Bandshell.
The goal is that this year's Maritime will spark a new generation's interest in the festival and that it will continue to grow in future years. Ware, who hadn't arrived yet when Maritime last took place but led the decision to bring it back, is certainly excited for what awaits this summer.
"It's going really good," Ware said of preparations for the festival. "I've only ever heard about Maritime. I've seen stories and I've checked the archives, but I've never gotten to attend. I have several really wonderful community leaders who were there and are helping me."
