This weekend there will be a sure sign that the summer season is truly at hand. What is that sign? Frontier Days 2023, of course.

Frontier Days is the annual Fort Dodge event that draws thousands to the downtown parade and the Fort Museum and Frontier Village.

The gates open at the Fort Museum and Frontier Village at 4 p.m. Friday and the excitement and entertainment will commence soon after.

The three-day festival continues a Fort Dodge tradition that is returning with a theme this year of “Tall Tales of the Frontier.” Not content to rest on applause for past glories, organizers have labored hard to produce a truly exceptional event.

Frontier Days 2023 will have familiar features, but there will be much that is new.

Highlights will include a detachment of Civil War reenactors, a motorcycle stunt show called the Globe of Death, the Buckskinner Camp, a chain saw artist, kids games, live music and, of course, the big parade down Central Avenue.

There will be enough food and beverages to make this a good weekend to forget about that diet.

Creating experiences with carefully crafted appeal to virtually all segments of the community has been an organizing principle for Frontier Days planning for more than four decades. Flawless success in achieving that goal is one of the reasons this festival draws huge crowds and routinely sends folks home smiling.

This weekend will be a time for festive family recreation and an opportunity to forge happy memories that will be recalled with pleasure for many years from now. Don’t miss out. Join in the fun at Frontier Days 2023.

And if you meet one of the many volunteers who put this annual celebration together, be sure to thank them. Frontier Days does not happen without a whole lot of people working very hard, and they deserve our thanks.