Mike “Chooch” Saucier loves country music. He loves it so much, four years ago he decided to use some property he owns on Rock Lake (which is the unofficial name; the body of water is rightly called Kakakiwaganda Lake) to start his own music festival.
And thus, the Burwash Country Music Festival was born.
This weekend, more than 100 trailers and some 300 to 400 people converged on Saucier’s lakefront property, which he has carved into a variety of campsites for use during the festival, for the fourth annual Burwash festival.
“I just do it for the love of music,” the owner of Winmar Sudbury, a property restoration company, and the Chateau Guay Motel. “This brings lots of people together.”
With a pile of sponsors and dozens of volunteers to help make it happen, the festival brings people back year after year, Saucier said.
Many festival-goers bring their instruments with them, he added, and after the stage lights go dark, the party shifts to around the campfires, with folks plucking and singing into the wee hours of the morning. Saucier himself was up until about 3:30 a.m. Sunday morning playing music around the fire, he said.
“Making memories,” Saucier said.
Besides satisfying his own love of live music, he said the festival is a great way to support Sudbury musicians and give them exposure, something he has done at the Chateau Guay as well. He has hosted live music at the motel restaurant weekly since buying the business in 2021.
That purchase anticipated the construction of the Kingsway Entertainment District, Saucier told Sudbury.com four years ago. While the entertainment portion of the KED died in 2022, about a year after Saucier bought the motel, the birth of the Kingsway Employment District is good news, he said.