“Thursdays on Sweden,” Caribou’s annual biweekly summer street fair, is now in full swing and is continuing to draw large crowds more than a decade after it launched.
Now in its 13th year, the event organized by the Caribou Parks and Recreation Department includes live music, food and craft vendors, and a beer garden in Caribou’s downtown.
The first two nights in June saw large turnouts, as did the most recent event on Thursday.
“They were slam dunks,” Caribou Parks and Recreation Superintendent Gary Marquis said. “They’ve been phenomenal.”
The closed off portion of Sweden Street has been seeing well over 1,000 guests each night, Marquis said. He estimated that there are typically between 1,200 and 1,400 in attendance throughout each night.
Marquis said 2025 was one of the festival’s strongest years, and that this year is on track to match or even beat it in terms of attendance. About half a dozen volunteers at the rec department work behind the scenes to make “Thursdays” happen.
Many of the vendors are also connected to Caribou. Lacy Wallace, who was born and raised here, hosted a photo booth complete with props. Thursday was her second time coming out to the event, as she just started her photography company Whispering Willow Photography last November.
The photo both favors capturing fun candid moments over poses, she said.
“When I started this business, I was like, ‘I have a camera. I have a ton of props. I have everything I need just to set up a whole photo booth.’ It doesn’t need to be anything special. It’s just to make memories and help people catch them,” she said.
Barbara Burlock and her husband Laine Burlock both graduated from Caribou High School and have been married for 55 years. Barbara recently began selling feathers through her business, The Painted Feather Lady, at the festival.
She first learned about painting feathers while living with her husband in Tucson, Arizona. They met a Native American woman at an international tribal gathering who painted feathers. The woman taught Burlock the technique and she began painting her own designs. Burlock uses her own designs, and said she does not do traditional Native American paintings because she is not an Indigenous person.
The Burlocks have moved back and forth between Caribou and Tucson throughout the years. This is their first year with a booth at the festival. They have attended “Thursdays” throughout the years and said that they’ve noticed that in the past a larger crowd would come for a brief period, but they wouldn’t stay long.
Now, she said it looks like there is a more reliable and steady stream of attendants.
“They’re staying for the music. They have something to eat. They visit the booths. So in that respect it’s been more consistent, so that’s nice,” She said.
At this point in the event’s life, the city barely needs to advertise. People in Caribou and surrounding towns have grown to expect and look forward to coming out in the summer and seeing each other.
The music and food are part of what keeps people coming back, but Marquis said it’s mostly just that it gives people a chance to hang out with their neighbors.
“Winters are so long up here,” he said. “And they just look forward to it. They want to get out, and it’s a nice spot downtown.”
The fact that it’s free to attend doesn’t hurt either, he said.
Since Caribou started Thursdays on Sweden, several other Aroostook County towns, including Presque Isle, Fort Kent and Madawaska, have started hosting their own street festivals.
In addition to bringing in guests from Caribou, “Thursdays” get plenty of guests from the surrounding communities of Limestone, Fort Fairfield, Washburn, Woodland and Van Buren.
Wallace noted the positive impact of the event on the younger generation and said a young boy helped her and her husband set up her booth without asking for anything in return.
“Seeing that in our youth is great,” she said. “Nowadays people are more online than they are in-person, so this kind of brings back that connection.”
