SEQUIM — The Museum & Arts Center in the Sequim-Dungeness Valley digs into the 60-plus-year history of the Bugge Cannery Co. in an exhibit opening with a reception at the MAC Exhibit Center, 175 W. Cedar St., at 5:30 p.m. today.
The exhibit includes artifacts used at the clam cannery, workers’ firsthand accounts, photographs and other Bugge business mementos.
Reception refreshments will include fresh clams provided by Mystery Bay Seafood Catering.
Author Pamala Kay Grender, whose 2011 memoir Faded Treasures, Vibrant Lives chronicles the genealogy and entrepreneurial endeavors of the Bugge family, will present a slide show during the reception and autograph copies of her book, which will be available for purchase.
Business family
In addition to highlighting the clam cannery, the exhibit spotlights its namesake family of civil servants and entrepreneurs whose other commercial ventures included a ship-docking wharf and export business at Port Williams and a mercantile-post office in Sequim.
Although few visible traces remain of their extensive entrepreneurial exploits, brothers Hans and Jens Bugge’s business endeavors made their family name a familiar one in the region around the turn of the 20th century.
The seasonally operated Bugge Cannery Co. at Washington Harbor produced signature brands of widely shipped clams and clam nectar for more than 60 years, and earned proprietor Hans Bugge the nickname of Washington’s “Clam King.”
Bugge’s son, Anphin, oversaw the cannery for 44 years until 1966, when he sold the Washington Harbor property to Battelle-Northwest.
The Bugge exhibit will remain on display through December.
For more information, phone 360-683-8110 or visit www.macsequim.org.
