Festival goers vote to settle Pastyfest mascot name change

CALUMET — The pasty takes center stage this weekend in the Copper Country.

Kitchens are busy throughout the Copper Country as bakers prepare their best pasties for tomorrow’s Pastyfest. The annual event held in Agassiz Park in Calumet features professionally baked pasties and special-recipe home cooked pies. People still enjoy the pasty as much today as the miners did many years ago.

Event Organizer Laura Smyth said, “The miners could take that as a whole meal in one hand and then hold the crust at the very end and then toss the crust aside. That big heavy crust served a purpose. It actually could be used as a kind of handle so the dirt and stuff from the mines, you wouldn’t have to eat it. You just hold on to it, eat it all the way down to the nub and throw the nub away.”

Lindell’s in Lake Linden and the Mohawk Superette will be the featured pasty vendors along with a wide range of other foods.

And they are going to try and settle the controversy of whether the pasty mascot should keep its Finnish name of Toivo or have it changed to Cousin Jack, while raising money for Main Street Calumet.

Smyth said, “Every dollar is a vote. So, you can stuff the ballot box for Toivo, keep the name Toivo or stuff the ballot box to rename it Cousin Jack and we’ll see which ethnicity wins out and we will honor the decision of the people and we will rename our pasty mascot or not.”

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