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Mackinac Island, Mich-Most people don't need an excuse to indulge in a piece or two of creamy, decadent fudge. But, for those who do, the 4th annual Mackinac Island Fudge Festival, which runs Aug. 22-23, 2008 offers Island dwellers and tourists a terrific reason to celebrate fudge -- made fresh each day at Mackinac's 15 fudge shops.

For more than a century, Mackinac Island's fudge has been an institution that's become famous worldwide. Fudge devotees are known as "fudgies" – a term that is also synonymous with Northern Michigan tourists.

The festival features a number of fudge-related events activities including:

Performance with the Children's Ballet Theatre of Michigan

Bicycle and hiking tours with Doc Crain

Fudge on the Rocks

Art in the Trees: A Photographers Exhibition

Architectural walking tours

Bicycle and hiking tours

Fudge spa treatments at 7th Heaven Salon & Spa and the Lilac Tree Spa.

Live concert with the Michigan’s award winning bluegrass band Lonesome County

Island fudge shops will host the "Daddy, I want the Golden Ticket & I want it Now!" fudge vacation contest. Much like in the movie, Five Golden Tickets will be placed in special packages of fudge. Those who purchase the package with a Winning Golden Ticket inside will receive a 2007 two-night stay on the Island for four that includes ferry tickets, a carriage tour, bike rentals and lunch for four.

New for 2008 is the inspired exhibition Art in the Trees: A Photographers Exhibition featuring the works of celebrated Island photographers Robert Jerstrom, Nancy May, Kate Levy, Mary McGuire Slevin, Steven Moskwa and Greg Main.

This creative art show will take place in a natural clearing of cedar trees overlooking the straits of Mackinac just a ten minute walk from downtown under the West Bluff. Island photographers are continually inspired by the features and the ever changing light and shadow on the Island. This is the first photographers exhibition to ever take place in the outdoors on Mackinac Island.

Refreshments and live music will accompany the works of art which should make for a festive occasion for all. Like lilacs, horses and bicycles, fudge making is an Island hallmark and longtime tradition. In the nineteenth century, maple sugar sweets were manufactured by the local Odawa in nearby L'Arbor Croche, packaged in birchbark containers called "mokuks" and shipped from Mackinac Island in steamships touring the Great Lakes to confectioners throughout the country. After the Civil War, Island shopkeepers continued to stock the "mokuks" along with Whitman's and Stuart's candies and chocolates.

Tourists visiting the Island began requesting regional, Mackinac-made goods and in the late 1880s Harry Murdick opened "Murdick's Candy Kitchen." He and sons Rome and Gould made the fudge on marble slabs positioning the kitchen cooling fans to blow the smell of cooking candy onto the streets. By the 1930s, Murdick's Fudge had grown to several locations and added Harold May, a prominent candy chef from Kansas to the staff. In the 1940s, Gould Murdick retired and sold his business to May.

After World War II, May's Fudge began supplying postwar tourists with fudge, quality chocolates and candies and began the tradition of fudge making as a spectator activity. Looking to grab a piece of the action, Harry Ryba, a Detroiter who made and sold fudge at State Fairs, bought a shop with his son-in-law Victor Callewaert on Main Street. He believed in May's philosophy of fudge making as a spectator sport and strategically located his marble slabs in his storefront windows while using Murdick's ploy of blowing the smell of fudge making onto the Island's streets and began to attract crowds to his store. The fudge business boomed and the Murray Hotel began selling fudge from their porch, Frank Nephew opened Joanne's Fudge to honor the tradition and Bob Benser purchased Murdick's Fudge from the soon-to-be-retired Jerome Murdick to preserve Mackinac Island's first fudge making business.

Mackinac Island's fudge is an Island institution that is now known worldwide. Today, the scent of fudge continues to waft through the streets of Mackinac.

For more information visit:http://www.mackinacisland.org/http://www.mackinacislandlilacfestival.com/http://www.mackinacislandfudgefestival.org/ http://www.mackinacislanddogandponyclub.com/ Contact:Mary McGuire SlevinExecutive Director director@mackinacisland.org800-454-5227