After a 17-year run, the annual Illinois & Michigan Canal Rendezvous in Columbia Woods in Willow Springs is kaput, at least for next year.
Financial and time constraints have forced the event’s sponsor, the Illinois Michigan Canal National Heritage Corridor Civic Center Authority, to cancel the annual re-enactment of life along the Des Plaines River during the era of the French fur trade in the 17th and 18th Centuries and the I&M Canal construction from 1836 to 1848.
The authority board earlier this month decided it could no longer devote the time, energy and resources needed to organize and oversee the fest, which typically attracted some 300 participants and as many as 9,000 visitors to Columbia Woods during the second weekend in September.
Authority Chairman Stan Johnson says he hopes another organization or one or more of the 12 towns along the Des Plaines from Lyons to Lemont that were created as a result of the building of the I&M Canal will take over sponsorship of the event beginning in 2007.