Chehaw gets ready for Native American Cultural Festival

ALBANY — In what has become an annual spring event, Chehaw Park will once again host it’s Native American Cultural Festival this weekend.

Opening this Friday and running through Sunday, the Native American Cultural Festival is one of the park’s largest and most popular events, bringing a wide variety of guests to the park.

“It’s a huge event for us,” said Morgan Seegmueller, public relations coordinator for the park. “We have over 3,500 people come through the gates each day during the festival if weather cooperates.”

In addition to drawing a large crowd to the park, the festival’s main purpose is to educate visitors about the history of Native American people, not only in the southwest region of Georgia but from all over the United States.

The festival features traditional music and dance as well as other demonstrations that reflect Native American culture and lifestyle.

This year’s festival will feature a demonstration (Warriors on Horseback) of painted and mounted warriors in mock battle demonstrating how an entire culture developed around the use of horses.

“There’s will be a lot of stuff going on,” said Seegmueller. “We’ll open on Friday, which is a day we have a lot of schools come out and then we’ll be full blown Saturday and Sunday. There will be different things going on each day, so visitors really should try to come out for the whole weekend.”

The festival will open each day at 9:30 a.m. and will close at 5 p.m. on Friday and Sunday and at 6 p.m. on Saturday.

Passes for the weekend are available for $18 for adults and $12 for children. Single day day admission is an additional $1 added to the normal park and zoo admission fee. Chehaw members will be charged a $1 admission fee to enter the festival.

Currently, admission to Chehaw is $3 per adult and $2 per children to enter the park and an additional $6.75 for adults and $4.75 for children to enter the zoo.

The Native American Festival is held inside the zoo at the park’s festival arena, so anyone wanting to attend the festival would have to gain entry to the zoo in addition to the park.