New London ― It’s not every day that people from California and Utah whose parents grew up in nearby villages in the Basque Country find themselves gathered together in New London.

And it’s not every day that part of State Street is shut down for competitive wood-chopping.

The Basque flag was raised and hundreds of people gathered at Parade Plaza on Saturday for basqueFEST. It’s not the first time the New England Basque Club has held a festival in the city, but it’s the first one since the pandemic and the first time the North American Basque Organizations also made New London the site of its annual meeting. The Basque region spans parts of northern Spain and southwestern France, sharing a language and culture.

As the organizers set up food and beverages in the morning, some festivalgoers sat at tables under the large white tent playing a card game called Mus. Saturday served as a qualifier for a nationwide tournament.

Jean Flesher of Salt Lake City explained that players bluff like in poker but play in pairs like in bridge. He was playing with people from San Francisco, Fresno and Reno.

Flesher, one of many sporting a traditional Basque look with a beret and scarf, came with his wife and kids. He said there are 43 Basque clubs in the country, and the national convention on Friday in New London was an opportunity to talk about dancing, teaching the Basque language, and other things that affect the clubs.

As Miren Guenetxea was waiting for the festivities began, she saw a Nevada license plate and was looking around to see if she saw anybody familiar.

She now lives in Hingham, Mass. ― which doesn’t exactly have a large Basque population ― but previously lived in Nevada and was part of its Basque club. She came Saturday with her husband, 3-year-old son, and father, who is from the Basque region.

Guenetxea said she’s been there too many times to count, and her favorite part is the food, such as paella, octopus and chorizo. Also served Saturday were pintxos, the Basque version of tapas or small plates.

Urtzi Urrutikoetxea, a native of the Basque city of Bilbao, came from Washington, D.C. to report on the event for Berria, the only daily newspaper published entirely in the Basque language. It’s unrelated to any other existing language.

Adriano De Mata, also from Bilbao, said he was born in a Spanish-speaking family because speaking the Basque language was punished when his parents were young. His grandparents spoke it, and he and his sister picked it up again. He has spent the past seven years living in Quebec.

The Basque club for the Canadian province, called Euskaldunak Quebec, brought a small boat called a chalupa, which people rowed on Friday and Saturday. A chalupa is also the name for the kind of boat that Basques used for whaling in the mid-16th century.

New England Basque Club President Ander Caballero said there were also attendees from Newfoundland.

Darcy Rose was coming from a bit closer, from Chaplin, and was coming not due to having Basque heritage but for an activity that is also a Basque rural sport: wood chopping. A crowd cheered as she and wood chopping partner Richard Jordan competed against another team of two, chopping up logs with axes.

This competition involved both teams hacking at the same nine or 10 logs, whereas Rose said she is used to chopping one log for 30 to 40 seconds, “so you can go full-bore.”

Rose got involved in competitive wood-chopping 11 years ago as a freshman at the University of Connecticut, when she joined the UConn Woodsmen team. Pursuing the activity after graduation, she’s competed as far away as Australia, where she said there was a competitor from Basque Country “who was annihilating everyone.”

How New London became the home of a Basque festival

The idea for holding a festival in New London sprouted from a connection between a local physical therapist assistant and the owners of Thames River Greenery and Thames River Wine & Spirits.

Jon Aramendi, who works at a physical therapy practice in Shaws Cove and lives in Lebanon, was treating Charlotte Hennigan and would talk about going to Basque festivals elsewhere in the country. He was president of the New England Basque Club at the time and had come to the U.S. as a professional player of jai alai a racquetball-adjacent sport that involves hitting a ball off three walls with a curved wicker basket called a cesta.

Mayor Michael Passero said Hennigan approached him several years ago about having a festival here, and “the city was all in.” New London hosted a Basque festival in 2018 and 2019.

Addressing attendees this year at the Whale Tail fountain, the mayor asked how many people were visiting New London for the first time. Most hands shot up.

Caballero said the New England Basque Club is moving to a new home in new London, which wouldn’t have been possible without the help of Passero, event planner Barbara Neff, and Hennigan and her husband, Fred Argilagos.

e.moser@theday.com