ELK HORN, Iowa — This weekend people who are Danish, and those who are not, will gather in Iowa’s Danish Villages, Elk Horn and Kimballton. Last year there was no Tivoli Fest celebration due to COVID19.

This year they are calling it Tivoli Lite, as the celebration has been shortened to just Friday and Saturday. Now also the Danish Windmill is repaired and running again.

“Two years ago if you had come for the festival, there would have been no sails on the windmill,” said Lisa Riggs, who manages the Danish Windmill. “We completely replaced the wooden sails, sixty six foot tall, long pine timber, so the windmill is now a working windmill.”

This year on Friday there will be a coronation of Tivoli Royalty at 7 pm. The Third Wish Band will perform from 8-11 pm. Saturday there will be a lot of activity at the Museum of Danish America, with free admission from 10-4 pm. They will also host a behind the scenes tour of artifacts in storage in vaults at the museum. There will be fireworks Saturday night. The parade will take place at 11 am. There will also be a Danish Viking encampment in the Viking House located on the grounds of the Windmill.

Sometimes visitors have confused Dutch and Danish.

“A lot of people want to call it Dutch because of windmills they associate the country of Holland, and the Netherlands where Denmark had over 3000 windmills at its height in glory,” said Riggs. “A lot of people don’t understand it, Danes are from the country of Denmark and Dutch is the Netherlands.”

To learn more about the Elk Horn Danish Windmill, visit their website.