Bigfoot Prints and the 2022 Choctaw Labor Day Festival

The winding road taking us to the backwoods of Oklahoma built excitement for the weekend ahead. For some 30 years, our family has attended the annual Choctaw Labor Day festival filled with food, laughter, music, art, culture, sports, and heat. We’ve camped on the grounds all of those years, but in 2022, we did something a little different that set us on a new road—one marked with large yellow Bigfoot prints.

We’d searched online and found a little cabin to rent near Nashoba, about 30 minutes from the Choctaw Capitol Grounds at Tuskahoma. Way down a secluded dirt road, it was a little unnerving to not have cell signal. But then the property dogs greeted us when we pulled up to our self-check in cabin. The two highly intelligent red border collies made our porch their nightly guard duty, so we had no need to worry over Bigfoot breaking in.

The cabin had access to the Little River, which we took full advantage of. Sarah launched out solo in a canoe while Lynda Kay dipped her feet in by wading the shallows. The water was refreshing and peaceful.

But our main aim of the weekend was the festival and enjoying the freedom of not setting up an art booth this year. We spent most of Friday gallivanting the grounds, enjoying the princess pageant and finding the best eating spots.

For decades now, Choctaws have gathered at our beloved capitol grounds on Labor Day weekend for what amounts to a ginormous family reunion. Since we’ve launched our preservation work in art, the festival is a different experience. We aren’t only spectators. At every turn on any road or in any building, we run into people we know to hug and share stories with.

We’ll let the pictures take you with us to Choctaw Nation Labor Day weekend 2022: