Vikings in Norway, local beer in Escanaba: two U.P. festivals shared a Saturday

NORWAY, Mich. — Two Upper Peninsula towns threw fall parties on Saturday, Oct. 10. Norway celebrated its Norse roots with the Leif Erikson Festival, and Escanaba hosted UPtoberfest, which bills itself as the U.P.’s largest beer and wine festival.

Norway’s day opened at 9 a.m. with Leif’s Run, which offered 10K, 5K and 2-mile courses that started and finished at City Hall, 915 Main St. Race-day check-in ran from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. in the City Hall lobby, according to the festival’s website.

From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., downtown filled with an art and artisan market, food vendors, hay and wagon rides and free children’s activities, including Viking costume making and face painting. Renee Pollard was scheduled to demonstrate how to bake a traditional Cornish pasty at 10 a.m. at the American Legion.

The Norway Area Preservation Society’s schedule put the crowning of Miss Norway and the Norse King at 11:10 a.m. and the parade from St. Mary’s Church at noon. The band Victorious was booked for the band shell from 1 to 2:30 p.m. Viking reenactors, axe throwing near City Hall and a demonstration of glögg, a warm spiced wine, at Mister Mom’s filled out the day.

The festival was set to close at 7 p.m. at Strawberry Lake with the Viking funeral, a boat set ablaze on a funeral pyre. Congress authorized the president in 1964 to proclaim Oct. 9 of each year Leif Erikson Day, the festival notes.

In Escanaba, UPtoberfest ran from 2 to 7 p.m. near the band shell in Ludington Park, on the Lake Michigan shore. The $55 ticket included a keepsake pint glass for sampling regional craft beer, wine and mead, plus brats, Polish sausage, hot dogs and nachos from the Wells Lions Club, according to the Delta County Chamber of Commerce. The festival was limited to guests 21 and older.

Designated drivers paid $25 at the gate for the food, games, music and nonalcoholic drinks, and organizers offered free taxi rides. ToHuBoHu, the festival’s house band, was on the bill. Bay de Noc Brewers and United Way of Delta County run the event, which started in 2005, and proceeds go to the United Way.

Organizers had asked runners in Norway to park on side streets near City Hall, and UPtoberfest tickets were sold online through the chamber’s event page.

Updated Oct. 12, 2026: These events took place Oct. 10. This guide was published before them, and its schedule language has been changed to the past tense.

Updated Oct. 13, 2026: The headline and summary were changed to the past tense for events that have already taken place.

Sources:
Leif Erikson Festival, City of Norway, festival schedule, https://www.leiferiksonfest.com/
Leif Erikson Festival, “Leif’s Run”, https://www.leiferiksonfest.com/leif-s-run
Dickinson County Tourism, “Leif Erikson Festival,” Oct. 10, 2026, https://www.ironmountain.org/events/events-calendar/2026-10/leif-erikson-festival-2026-10-10/
Delta County Chamber of Commerce, “UPtoberfest,” Oct. 10, 2026, https://deltami.org/events/uptoberfest-6/
UPtoberfest, official site, http://uptoberfest.org/
Photo: RomanKahler, “Downtown Norway Michigan,” Oct. 2, 2016, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/), cropped and color-corrected; derivative under the same ShareAlike license, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Downtown_Norway_Michigan.jpg

Upper Peninsula

Tags: Upper Peninsula · Michigan Travel · Festivals · Parks and Recreation · Live Music