The annual Utah Lake Festival celebrates one of Utah’s greatest natural resources.
The event was filled with activities, including guided bike tours, sailboat rides and paddleboard jousting.
This year, Utah Lake Authority partnered with the Provo Farmers Market to bring booths to the festival filled with fresh produce.
The festival also had food trucks offering classic summer foods like foot-long corndogs and lemonade.
Jim Brookhart Sr., an out-of-state visitor, attended the festival with his family.
“I’m here visiting my son,” he said. “We wanted to get out and experience the lake and the scenery.”
Brookhart’s son, Jim Brookhart Jr. explained that he goes to city events regularly.
“It’s the start of summertime,” he said. “We can get outdoors more often and enjoy the natural beauty we have all around us.”
Hundreds of people gathered together to celebrate all that the Utah Lake has to offer. Attendees say the activities brought the community together.
Kelly Cannon-O’Day, communications and event manager at the Utah Lake Authority, plans all of their events. She said that the Utah Lake Festival is one of the biggest events of the year.
“The whole goal is just to let people come to the lake, let people enjoy the lake," Cannon-O'Day said. "Let them have a positive experience, and then hopefully they have such a good time that they are more likely to come back on their own time and have a wonderful time at their lake."
Cannon-O’Day explained that Utah lake is unique because it is the largest naturally forming freshwater lake in the state of Utah.
“No matter where you live in Utah County, you’re only twenty minutes away from an access point,” Cannon-O'Day said.
Utah Lake is accessible to everyone, but it has a negative perception due to its mistreatment in the past.
“Companies would dump their refuse in the lake and we wouldn’t really treat the water well,” Cannon-O'Day said. “It was full of invasive carp.”
However, the lake's treatment has changed over the past several decades.
“If people actually go to the lake and actually experience the lake, they generally have a very positive experience,” Cannon-O'Day said. “It changes their mentality of what Utah Lake was to what Utah Lake is."
The Utah Lake Festival helped people to see the quality of the lake.
“The fact that we as a society and Utahns have grown up around the lake is really, really kind of a beautiful idea,” Cannon-O'Day said. “We didn't always treat it the way it was supposed to be treated, but now we are. And it's a wonderful, wonderful resource for everybody.”
Utah Lake will remain a vital resource in Utah Valley as it is maintained and protected by the community.