The Burnett Sisters at the 2025 Cowichan Valley Bluegrass Festival – photo © Dave Berry
The Cowichan Valley Bluegrass Festival is billed as British Columbia’s Premier Bluegrass Music Festival and it’s hard to disagree given the wealth of talent, abundance of jamming, beautiful BC location, general enthusiasm, and of course, very friendly people. With headliners such as Wyatt Ellis, The Kody Norris Show, and the John Hartford Fiddle Tune Project, what could go wrong?
Well, actually, a lot could go wrong but artistic director Bob Remington and his ample staff of volunteers keep things running smoothly for the three-day festival at the Old West-styled Laketown Ranch BC location that the Cowichan tourism site describes as the “most down-to-earth place on Earth.” Throw in a host of up-and-comers such as Sweet Sally, the Burnett Sisters Band, plus George Jackson and Brad Kolodner, and a Saturday night square dance led by Vancouver caller Paul Silveria, and all the ingredients are in place for a wonderful Father’s Day weekend getaway.
The smaller Chapel Stage provided a more intimate environment for the headliners, some regional acts, and workshops covering topics such as Women in Bluegrass, the Next Generation, and band labs. Additionally, there were tents, sponsored by the Pacific Bluegrass and Old-Time Music Society, NimbleFingers, and the Victoria Bluegrass Association that held a variety of instrument-specific workshops, jams, and morning yoga.
The campgrounds jamming scene was hoppin’, with a nice variety of bluegrass, old-time, folk, and of course, a swing music camp, most of which were welcoming to strangers. The old-time camp, which included folks from Victoria, Vancouver, Courtenay/Comox, Lopez Island, and other locales, seemed to be going 24×7, and when I stopped by, it even had a heated area where spectators could relax and take it all in.
Not to be outdone, the late-night Saturday bluegrass jam area had a pizza oven cranking out delicious pizzas, including tent delivery service to nearby jammers, which you can read about further down in the article. For John Hartford fans and pickers, there was a workshop hosted off-site, in the town of Lake Cowichan, by the Hartford Project Band, and the students were invited to play the tune Tennessee Politics with the band on the main stage.
Tennessee Politics video by Sue Malcolm
It’s always fun to chat with folks at a festival, and it doesn’t matter if people are performers, volunteers, jammers, or just regular attendees at a festival. They are almost always willing to share their stories. Here are a couple of folks I queried after a short but fun afternoon jam.
Vancouver Island musician Ali Romano, who comes to Cowichan primarily for the jamming, had this to say.
“This is the festival I come to as a musician to have fun and play tunes with my friends. It’s my vacation, and I come for the jamming. I buy my ticket before I see the line-up ’cause I just know it’s going to be well-curated. I show up early, play tunes the whole weekend, and just have fun with friends. I’ve been here the last four years but missed three years ago because I was on the other side of the world studying music. I’m a music educator, run a folk orchestra, direct choirs, and am partial to western swing, but play lots of fiddle tunes.”
Ali was playing tunes with Wendy Knudson who talked about the location of the festival, which has moved and been renamed since its previous incarnation as the Sooke River Bluegrass Festival.
“We originally came when it was in Sooke and enjoyed it so much, but we were a bit apprehensive when it moved to Cowichan. But I think it has improved the festival in that there is a lot of space for jamming. We come with a whole group of folks and spend a lot of time at the campsite playing music. I always find some gem on the main stage and in the little chapel, and this year it was Sweet Sally. I am so impressed with the inclusion of youth in the programming. It just makes my heart soar and gives me hope for the future.”
I ran into volunteers and musicians Bryon Thompson and his wife Freda Eckstein backstage, who talked about their history with the festival. Bryon had this to say.
“I play guitar, dobro, lap steel, and several other things. My wife Freda and I played a mixture of bluegrass and country in different bands at the Sooke Bluegrass Festival, which was started by our friend Eric Day. We’ve never been to the festival at this Lake Town site, but they asked us to work backstage, so that’s really cool, and we’re finding it just wonderful.”
Freda added the following.
“My role here this year is backstage, looking after the green room, looking after the performers—hospitality, so to speak. I have done stage management before at a big Mill Bay country music festival a few years back, and also at the Roots Music Festival in Victoria.
The nice thing about this site is that it’s got room to expand. They have a bigger audience, so it’s a bigger promotional base than in Sooke, which limited how big they could get. This is bigger, but it’s still homey, and has that small-town flavor that the previous location had.
I like just hanging out backstage, seeing the jams, the interactions, the musicians, sometimes from other countries, meeting each other for the very first time. I think it’s nice seeing that connection, seeing that mutual respect and kind of going, where are you from, you know.
Plus, I love the jamming, like last night when the headliners had a cool swing jam going.”
Last but not least, I heard from long-time volunteer and pizza maestro, Lee Foote, who is originally from Louisiana, but now lives about an hour south of the site in Saanich.
“I’m a medium-long-term volunteer, and usually in charge of trash. I’m the trash man, a trashy guy. I’m a banjo player with a local band, but not quite good enough to get on the Cowichan stage. I’ve been coming for four years and this is the second year we’ve done the pizzas. Next year it’ll be gumbo.
Anyway, at midnight on Saturday, the word goes out through the campground that the late-night pickers can come by and have a free pizza. There are a couple of reasons for that. One is, that I ascribe to the idea that food is love, and music is love, and by midnight, the pure players of that community are still out there doing their thing, and they’re working up an appetite because they use a lot of brain power, so I take a break and cook something you know, and it keeps people going.
You know, it does another thing, practically. Maybe it absorbs a little bit of the alcohol of those people who drink, and it brings them back to life, and you can go to three in the morning instead of one. I’ve had the oven for three years now, and it only takes about two to three minutes for each pizza, depending on the weather. We’ve done it at several big events that were 20 to 35 pizzas in an evening. We did 28 last night and whenever we get ahead of the pizza production, we would put a peel out there and fill it with pizza, slice it up, and send somebody out to be Santa Claus at various jams.”
Well, there you have it from Cowichan BC, Canada. It’s always fun to experience a new festival, see new acts, make new friends, and experience the local flair, so be sure and check out the festival scene during your summer travel destinations. You never know what you might discover.
Sweet Georgia Brown jam in the Green Room
Photos by Dave Berry
