Web Exclusive
30 YEARS. 14 LOCATIONS. THOUSANDS OF STORIES. ONE LEGENDARY GATHERING.
For three decades, the New York Harvest Fest has stood as a cornerstone of cannabis culture, activism, music, art, and community.
What began as a gathering of passionate advocates has grown into one of the most enduring celebrations of plant culture in New York, traveling to 14 unique locations while bringing together generations of pioneers, growers, patients, artists, musicians, educators, entrepreneurs, and freethinkers.
Over the years, Harvest Fest has welcomed a memorable lineup of performers and visionaries including Pete Seeger, George Clinton & the 420 Funk Mob, Richie Havens, Immortal Technique, dead prez, Dogs in a Pile, lespecial, New Riders of the Purple Sage, The Wailers, The Dead Milkmen, Cabinet, Fishbone, Melvin Seals & JGB, Levon Helm, Particle, Vince Herman, Aron Magner, Ryan Montbleau, John Kadlecik, Ike Willis, Ed Mann, Napoleon Murphy Brock, Murphy's Law, The Persuasions, Max Creek, Kenny Brooks, ecoustic hookah, Moonalice, The David Nelson Band, Donna Jean Godchaux, Garth Hudson & The Dharma Bums, Vassar Clements, Buddy Cage, Sophistafunk, The Schwag, and countless others! The electronic stage has featured trailblazers including DJ Logic, Frankie Bones, Heather Heart, Rob Gee, Superstar DJ Keoki, Atomic Babies, DANK, Roo, True Risen and more.
Harvest Fest has also served as a platform for some of the most influential voices in activism and social change, including Jack Herer, Ask Ed Rosenthal, Timothy Tyler, Rhoney Stanley, Hamilton Morris, Steven and Ina Mae Gaskin, Dana Beal, Queen Mother (widow of
Baba Olatunji), The Real Radio Rahim, Mayor Jason West, Jimmy Tebeau, John Galt Jr., Doug Greene, Danny Danko, Rick Cusick, Steve Bloom, Don E. Wirtshafter, Donnie Greenthumb, Jim Miller, Steven Hager, NJ WEEDMAN, Rev. Larry Ellis, Rev. Kenny Glassco, Judge James Grey, Vince Herman and many more champions of freedom, education, and reform.
The visual arts have always been woven into the soul of Harvest Fest with extraordinary artists including Alex Grey, Allyson Grey, Mike DuBois, Mikio Kennedy, Isaac Abrams, Lisa Betournay Bell, David Dipp, Desiree Rosalee, Groovin Lumens, Smoke & Mirrors, Joint Ventures & Technological Artisans transforming the festival grounds into immersive galleries of creativity and consciousness.
For 30 years, Harvest Fest has celebrated award-winning cultivators, legendary cup competitions, groundbreaking advocacy, educational workshops, live demonstrations and stunning visual art, unforgettable music, master craftspeople, eclectic artisans, lifelong friendships, family traditions, late-night campfire drum circles, and the evolution of an underground movement to a thriving legal industry!
This is more than a festival! It's a reunion, a movement, and a living piece of New York history.
The 30th Annual New York Harvest Fest Cannabis Cup
The longest running cannabis competition in America!
Where everyone is a judge!
Thirty years strong.
The roots run deep.
The story continues.
Oct. 24, 2026 - Noon - Midnight
Griffin House, Palenville, NY
Featuring:
Sam Grisman Project
Skeleton Crewe (Jay Lane, Pete Sears, Rob Barraco, Barry Sless & Steven Inglis)
Pappy Biondo (of Cabinet - Artist at Large)
SAGE
Misty Mountain Ramblers
Laura Leigh Band
Danny Danko (Senior Cultivation Editor High Times 2002-2020)
The Real Radio Rahim
Art Gallery featuring Mike DuBois & Mikio Kennedy
and so much more!
Welcome to our Web Exclusive section. Each month we will be bringing to you poetry, flash fiction, columns and more! With that, we welcome you to our September exclusives!
Into the Labyrinth of Stumpy Lake Woods
E. W. Farnsworth
Jim Childers was a forester who enjoyed making discoveries in the Maine woods. He walked and camped along the line where the lumber combines’ activities abutted the virgin forest. The line of demarcation between the two regions was clear from the air, but on the ground each offered a different form of ambiguity.
You might think the dark unknowns of the primeval woods might have challenged Childers in ways the heaps of uprooted stumps never did, but when you entered what Childers termed ‘the labyrinth,’ even in broad daylight you felt dwarfed and bewildered by its immensity. The ace woodsman admitted he had never been as scared or helpless as when he was asked to find the daughter of a long-time friend.
Indira had wandered off from her family’s camp, which was located on the boundary of the two regions at the place called stumpy Lake, a long waterway leading to the channel that led to the Great Lakes or the Atlantic Ocean depending on your desire. The young lady had disappeared without trace, and after a frantic two days of searching, her parents had called Childers, who dropped everything immediately and rushed to the scene where the girl had last been seen.
The forester set out into the land of stumps with a week’s supply of food. He planned to skirt the lake since it was the likeliest way for anyone to navigate on foot without access to instruments or a satellite phone. Meanwhile, he advised the distraught parents to hire a helicopter and, in it, do an expanding square search around the only group of trees left standing by the lumber companies, which had clear-cut everything else for their greed.
As Childers ventured forth, he found one of the girl’s socks, which was spotted with blood. He was not heartened by the blood as he knew the keen olfactory sensing of bears would be attracted to its source. He placed the sock in his backpack and hurried his pace hoping he would find her before the bears did. Not far along his trajectory, he found her second sock, bloodied like the first one. Indira did not answer his strident calls. He realized she had a two-day lead, so she might not be within earshot.
That night, Childers set a random pile of stumps ablaze. The helicopter, which was flying all night, flew over his position while shining its spotlight and using its bull horn to call for Indira. In the darkness, the only lights were those of the blaze and the spotlight shining from above. Childers fancied he could hear--above the crackling of the wood fire and the chuffing of the helicopter--the growling of bears.
The forester decided to take a chance on following the bears through the night, making his path by setting fires among stumps at regular intervals. So, along the south side of the lake a line of signal fires appeared. Childers guessed his pattern would be visible from the helicopter.
The man was fit and capable of maneuvering on the uneven surface alongside the lake. He was also aware the sound of the bears had shifted. Now he was not running towards the bears. Instead, he was being pursued by them as if he were their prey. He reasoned it was better the bests were tracking him instead of the young woman. Then he thought they might be following the scent on the two socks, but he was reluctant to discard them as they were the only indication Indira had been alive. He stopped to shove the bloody socks into a zip-loc bag, which he sealed before setting out along the lake again.
For hours, he kept on his course along the shore of the lake, setting fires and crying out as the helicopter flew out ahead of his track with its spotlight probing the maze of stumps. At one point, he heard the bullhorn state the bears were closing in on him. Seven huge bears were now pursuing him. He began to consider what he would do to avoid a deadly confrontation.
He set another fire and called out for the girl by her name. He repeated what the helicopter had broadcast about the bears and begged her to make a sound. He thought he heard a female voice cry out. The voice was shrill and hysterical. He knew she must be alive, so he summoned his strength and pressed forward. By his watch with the luminescent dial, he knew it was now one o’clock in the morning.
He shouted, “Indira, my name is Jim Childers. I need to find you right away, but I have a herd of bears on my trail. Shout, scream or just cry out continuously so that I can find you.”
“I hear you. I will keep shouting so you can find me. I am standing in the lake water around ten feet from shore. A bear cub is on the shore, growling but afraid to enter the water. Please come for me. I am afraid the bear’s mother will come for it and eat me.”
“Indira, I hear you. Keep talking. I am closing the distance between us. Are you all right? I found your two bloody socks, and I was worried.”
“I never should have taken those socks off. My feet are all cut up from the stumps. Otherwise, I am fine. How are we going to deal with the bears that are following you?”
“Good question. Can you swim?”
“I am a floater.”
“That’s good to know. How close does it seem I am from you?”
“You are very close. Can you light a fire so I can see where you are?”
Childers lit the nearest branch and scanned the water of the lake. He saw the girl waving her arms at him.
“I see you, Mr. Childers.”
“I’ll light up a stump and wade to you. Our helicopter is coming.”
As Childers reached Indira, the bears fled the helicopter’s spotlight and sounds.
CURSE 4: HEAD VOICE
By Chad Horn
Constant chattering
Utterances cram my skull
Rambling mumbles
Souring like verbal vomit
Exiting as rotten poems