By Philip L. Watness For Peninsula Daily News
BRINNON — “Shrimp is the fruit of the sea,” Pvt. Benjamin Buford “Bubba” Blue told Forrest Gump in the 67th Academy Awards Best Picture winner for 1994.
That same year, the Brinnon ShrimpFest began the annual tradition of celebrating the Hood Canal spot shrimp and other local seafood, an event that has grown to attract thousands each year.
The 17th annual edition of the festival highlighting the “fruit of the sea” will kick off at 10 a.m. Saturday with a full day of celebration until 5 p.m. and continue from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday at Dosewallips State Park in Brinnon.
Craft and food booths, exhibits, live music and belt-sander races bring the community and visitors together to enjoy life along the Hood Canal.
Mouth of Dosewallips
The event takes place on the grassy part of Dosewallips State Park, east of U.S. Highway 101 and north of the Dosewallips River.
“We expect from 12,000 to 15,000 visitors at our festival site at the mouth of the Dosewallips River where the daily low tides offer the opportunity for oyster and clam harvesting,” said Kay Peterson, a board member of Emerald Towns Alliance, the nonprofit organization that sponsors the annual event.
Low tides each day will be at around 9 a.m., revealing plenty of tidal flats just offshore for those wishing to gather their own clams or oysters or to show their children the marvels of Hood Canal sea life. (Washington state issues shellfish licenses for clam- and oyster-digging.)
Among the more than 75 booths will be plenty of food booths offering shrimp, clams, salmon and oysters.
Frozen Hood Canal spot shrimp also will be for sale on a first-come, first-served basis at the booth manned by Emerald Towns Alliance.
Organizers will have 1,500 pounds of shrimp for sale at $12 for each of the 1,100 containers.
Over the years, the event has raised funds to support Brinnon School, the Brinnon Food Bank, the Brinnon and Quilcene community centers, Dollars for Scholars and Senior Nutrition.
Belt-sander races
Popular souped-up belt-sander races will heat up at noon to 2 p.m. each day, with as many as two dozen competitors sending their machines tearing down the plank.
Seattle’s Forgiven Choices musical group will perform from 10 a.m. to noon and from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, while the Voetberg Family Band of Centralia will play during the same hours Sunday.
Mercantile booths will offer for sale custom clothing, ceramics, jewelry, original artwork and specialty gourmet food items.
Big Quilcene Enterprises, a local youth entrepreneurial project, will offer full seafood meals of shrimp, salmon, oysters and clams.
Children can enjoy a giant 40-foot purple slide, henna tattoos, face-painting and novelty toy booths, while adults can quaff beer in the Brinnon Veterans of Foreign Wars beer garden.
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Philip L. Watness is a freelance writer and photographer living in Port Townsend. He can be reached at whatnews@olypen.com.
