Hundreds of residents gathered Saturday for a day of live music at the seventh annual Ester Fest.
Ester Community Park, owned by the Ester Community Association, is known as the center of the Ester community. It is where children learn to ride bikes and play hockey, where residents celebrate everything from birthdays to funerals, and where they attend events such as Angry, Young and Poor, Folk Fest, and Fairbanks Fungi Fest.
This year’s lineup included Dave Parks, The Skidmarks, Tim Easton, Vitamin U, Missy Beth and the Morning Afters, The Thneeds, Steve Brown and the Bailers, Cowgrinder, Act of Congress and Monolith Green. The festival also included a beer garden, 40 vendors and food trucks.
Over the past 38 years, volunteers have built an ice skating rink, playground, picnic pavilion and stage. The annual festival raises money for the park’s upkeep, maintenance and mortgage.
In 1985, Mark Simpson wanted a place in Ester where he could drink beer and play Frisbee instead of driving to a parking lot on the west side of Fairbanks.
The association secured a 30-year recreational lease for six acres of dredged material from Fairbanks North Star Borough and began construction of the park in 1986. Volunteers covered the spoil pile with mud and peat to create the large field.
Since then, Simpson has been mowing the lawn in the park and is proud of the green grass.
He said he usually starts at the edge of the park and mows in smaller, concentric circles, but at the festival he starts in the middle and mows in larger, concentric circles.
Simpson estimates that the park receives over 10,000 visitors annually. The park is closed only twice a year – once for Ester Fest in August and once for cleanup day in May.
The club bought the park in 2016.
Simpson smiled as he looked at the people scattered on lawn chairs and picnic blankets, the children playing on the playground and the people dancing.
“That’s what we built it for,” he said. “It’s like the culmination of everything.”
Rachel Jeppsen, owner of Arctic Moto Adventures, called the park “the jewel of the community.”
She said she plays hockey at the park on Sundays in the winter and attends events at the park in the summer.
Jeppsen said the park is the center of the community, where families spend time together, children play on the playground and celebrate birthday parties.
The John Trigg Ester Library gave away dozens of books at the festival.
Nancy Slayton, who volunteers at the library, said Ester Community Park is an important part of family life in Ester.
“It means different things to different people,” she said.
Slayton said she spent a lot of time at the park when her son was little.
Local children’s author Tavia Florens-Bolton said she lives in Fairbanks but comes to the park for her children’s birthday parties. She said her children enjoy playing in the park and she feels the park is a safe and secluded place with plenty to do.
ECA board member Jennifer Ingman said the park is a great place to host events and it’s convenient to have a park in Ester Township. She said she comes to the park in the summer with her husband to play yard games and attends the many summer festivals.
