PORT ANGELES — Entrepreneurs from both sides of the Strait of Juan de Fuca joined with city of Port Angeles officials this week for an enthusiastic, hopeful afternoon of trading tourism ideas.
The get-together of business owners from Port Angeles and Victoria concluded with pledges of more across-the-water visits — and hopes that efforts to bring more Canadian visitors to Victoria’s smaller southern neighbor will bear fruit.
“This is a new beginning, and we should not let it rest,” Port Angeles businessman Ed Bedford, owner of Northwest Soda Works, said Wednesday at the close of a Port Angeles CrabHouse restaurant luncheon attended by about 30 participants.
“It’s important to all of us on both sides of the water,” Bedford said.
“We will reciprocate on behalf of the city. If we make the opportunity to expand on it, it won’t do anything but benefit all of us.”
Luncheon participants heard presentations about Port Angeles’ $17 million waterfront improvement project and the city’s wireless-access upgrades for Internet users within the city limit along with Victoria’s plans for its upcoming 150th birthday celebration.
The 15 Canadians at the luncheon were greeted upon their arrived on the 12:05 p.m. MV Coho sailing by Mayor Cherie Kidd and Necessities & Temptations gift shop owner Edna Petersen.
Upon disembarking the ferry, the guests received gift bags with candy, a commemorative Elwha River Restoration Project cup, a $5-off discount slip for Petersen’s store and the greeting, “Welcome to our Victoria neighbors!”
The Victoria visitors also joined their Port Angeles hosts in a post-luncheon tour of Westport Shipyard’s yacht-building facility.
The tour was followed by a walkabout of downtown and the city’s “underground” led by underground tour guide and former City Councilman Don Perry and Downtown Association Executive Director Barb Frederick.
The Canadians returned to Victoria on the 5:20 p.m. sailing.
“We need to educate more people about the ease of going back and forth to the states,” Ed Chan of Victoria, a retired chef and an organizer of Wednesday’s visit, said in a telephone interview Thursday, referring to the 90-minute ferry ride home.
“It’s fairly inexpensive to hop on a ferry, spend the day in Port Angeles or spend a weekend in Port Angeles, and come home,” Chan said, adding that Port Angeles is “very walkable.”
The Wednesday get-together was initiated by Kidd and organized by her and Frederick.
It will be followed by a Port Angeles delegation’s visit to Victoria on July 1 for Canada Day and Victoria Mayor Dean Fortin’s visit to Port Angeles for the city’s July Fourth parade, Kidd said.
“Getting the word out to Victoria, that’s our focus,” Kidd said Thursday, adding that every Canadian who attended the luncheon and toured the city returned to Victoria as a new “ambassador” for Port Angeles.
“We have to let them know why they need to come here,” Kidd said, adding that Wednesday afternoon’s activities represented a step in that direction.
“We have a huge, untapped market for tourism in Victoria, and they don’t know why they need to come,” she said.
“That’s our job, that’s my job as mayor to let them know they have to come. We are making progress.”
The Canadian visitors discussed what might come after their visit at a dinner later that night in Victoria that included members of the Victoria AM Association and the Canadian Culinary Federation, Canadian Juliana Atkinson said Thursday.
Atkinson said the question posed during dinner was: “What can we do to strengthen our ties with Port Angeles to make their community more vibrant?”
An effort could be made to attract more young people from Victoria, advertise weekend ferry-hotel packages with Port Angeles as the destination, and put more advertising in Victoria publications about what Port Angeles has to offer.
“We’ve got to get the word out,” Atkinson insisted.
Atkinson, a semiretired pastry chef, said she was impressed by Port Angeles Planning and Economic Development Director Nathan West’s luncheon presentation on the waterfront project.
“I’ll probably tell 40 people about my visit and how I want to go back and check out all the little shops,” Atkinson said.
“An hour and a half, and you’re there. You don’t have to drive, you don’t have to worry about anything. It looks like a really interesting place to visit, absolutely.”
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
