WINONA, Minn. — Boats and Bluegrass Festival is a beloved tradition for 3,000 fans of music and recreation on the Mississippi River, but Rebecca Sammis said the annual gathering goes much deeper.

“There’s a whole community, a whole culture. It’s a whole feeling,” said Sammis, co-director of the festival that started 22 years ago to promote a former canoe outfitter.

Boats and Bluegrass sells out before the lineup is announced and draws from the same crowd as Blue Ox Music Festival in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, which celebrated its 12th year in June. Both festivals are intertwined in a progressive bluegrass scene across the Upper Midwest. But it isn’t old-timey bluegrass with suits and ties.

Instead, it’s a sea of tie dye-clad hippies dancing to a crossover of Americana and improvisational jam bands with traditional flatpicking popularized by Grammy-winning musician Billy Strings.

Strings, who headlined Boats in 2018, raised the visibility of bluegrass and notably “jamgrass,” but the subculture remains a tight-knit community of dedicated fans who are often musicians. It’s not wrong to assume a festivalgoer is in a band. They’re likely in two.

What makes the bluegrass festivals distinct is the magic they create around campfires every night. “It’s the collaboration. It’s the jam,” said Duluth musician Sonja Martin, of the band Feeding Leroy.

People bring fiddles, guitars, mandolins, banjos, washboards and upright basses — never has a campground seen so many upright basses — to stay up late jamming together. They take turns picking a song and everyone sings along. An artist who performed on stage under bright lights leads the intimate group in an old hymn or country tune.

That authenticity in the music is reflected in the crowd, said Blue Ox co-owner Mark Bischel. Good music attracts good people, though he said the word “bluegrass” may deter folks from finding out that the festivals and surrounding scene transcend that music category.

Boats and Blue Ox blend genres and generations. Both are billed as family-friendly. Kids get in for free and roam freely while checking out scheduled activities and programming centered around art and nature.

“We love the community. We love the setting,” said Amelia Goetz, of Minneapolis, whose 6-year-old daughter has grown up going with her to both festivals. “When the weight of the world feels like it’s crushing your soul, and you come to a place like this and you have hope ... It’s really special.”

There is a synergy between the festivals that organizers embrace. Rather than compete, they support each other and new additions to the scene, like Boogiedown Music Festival now in its sixth year at Driftless Music Gardens in Yuba, Wisconsin.

“We coexist and work to the best of our abilities to make sure that everybody gets that leg up,” said Crickett Lochner, who co-owns Driftless on her family’s sixth-generation dairy farm along with members of the People Brothers Band.

It’s the opposite approach of Live Nation that has a monopoly on the live music industry. These festivals are directed by musicians who keep it grassroots, volunteer-run and affordable. For a weekend to see 30-some bands, tickets run under $300. In comparison, tickets to see Noah Kahan at Target Field in August were reselling for $500.

This local circuit of festivals still brings in big national acts while also platforming hometown favorites to give them exposure. Boats booked Leftover Salmon, the Denver-based zydeco and Cajun-flavored jam band that pioneered “slamgrass.”

In the crowd was Bryan “Lefty” Johnson, a member of the Duluth-based jam band Saltydog. Johnson said he was in his early 20s when he first saw Leftover Salmon perform in Minneapolis. More than 30 years later, Vince Herman is still jamming.

Trampled by Turtles performed at Boogiedown in early September, and at the inaugural Boats in 2005 along with the Twin Cities band Pert Near Sandstone. Both were vital in solidifying Boats as a destination in the region’s then-blossoming bluegrass scene. A decade later, Pert Near helped start Blue Ox, which grew into the biggest progressive bluegrass festival in the Upper Midwest.

“It was cultivated, and it has sustained. And now it’s all generational,” said Justin Bruhn, the upright bassist in Pert Near.

The founders of Boats, Tom and Julie Fassbender, said they knew fresh eyes would attract the next generation and carry on the tradition.

Isaac and Rebecca Sammis took over as co-owners seven years ago when they were only 25. The Fassbenders presided over the Sammis’ wedding and passed them the Boats torch. The Sammis’ met at Boats as volunteers and now they have nearly 300 volunteers, many of whom are dear friends, to lighten the load of running a festival that Rebecca said is more like a family reunion.

Their lives revolve around building Boats, and family. The couple is expecting their fourth child in February. Over the weekend, their 2-year-old daughter was front row dancing to dad’s band, Texas Toast, while holding mom’s hand.

Isaac Sammis said the thread throughout the festivals and music scene are shared values of what they want to create — not just for one weekend, but their vision of the world. In the midst of all the political discord, he said this community embodies harmony.

“There are 3,000 people here that feel the same way that I do ... about the music, being outside, taking care of each other,” he said. “That’s so encouraging, so reassuring.”

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