Harbor Days expands to include tribal activities, tall ships, sand sculpting —and beer

The 44th annual Harbor Days Tugboat Races and Festival will feature not only its traditional tugboat races, but also a tribal canoe race with South Sound canoe families.

Washington’s last remaining vintage tugboat races and festival, Harbor Days is offering several new attractions this year, including sand sculpting, more rides and activities for children, and a “Salish Seaport” at Port Plaza, an area organized by the Squaxin Tribe that will feature demonstrations of traditional carving and artisans selling their wares.

“We have for the first time ever a beer garden,” festival organizer Carol Riley said. “That’s through the Squaxin Island Tribe, and the tribe will have a baked salmon booth right next to the beer garden.”

The festival will host nearly 30 boats, including 15 tugs, 2 to 4 tribal canoes, the steamship Virginia V, and the tall ships Lady Washington and Hawaiian Chieftain, which arrived Monday and will be in Olympia through Sept. 5.

“We haven’t seen them for seven years,” Riley said.

Nine tugs will compete in Sunday’s tugboat races, held on a 1.8-mile course. Though the number of boats is down slightly from last year, Harbor Days organizers believe they will be the world’s largest vintage tugboat races.

“The Seattle Maritime Festival used to claim to host the world’s largest tugboat races, but the festival doesn’t do tugboat racing anymore,” Riley said. She’s spoken with Guinness World Records about awarding that title, and hopes to go through the time-consuming and expensive process of gaining it for Harbor Days in the future.

The canoe race will happen Saturday. South Sound canoe families will paddle the large canoes used in canoe journeys on a race of about 1,000 feet, said Leslie Johnson, Squaxin Island Tribe tourism director.

“It’s not a huge race because these aren’t racing canoes,” she said.

After the race, there’ll be demonstrations of dancing, singing and drumming.

For young seafarers, the Hands On Children’s Museum will have a booth offering a cork boat regatta. Children can build boats from repurposed materials and test how well they float.

The Puget Sound Estuarium will have nine marine-themed activities. Kids can try out bungee jumping and walking on water — the latter done in a large floating ball.

The Form Finders sand-sculpting team will create a tugboat sculpture throughout the festival, and carvers will compete Sunday to see who can create a sculpture on a theme chosen by someone in the crowd.

Many of the carvers formerly participated in the Hands On Children’s Museum’s Sand in the City, which the museum no longer hosts.

Among the other entertainment options at the festival will be aerial acrobatics by Olympia’s Airbound Underground, which first performed at the festival last year, and live music.

In addition to main stage performers, there’ll be street performers and strolling groups entertaining.

And there’ll be lots to eat, with offerings ranging from elephant ears and fried Twinkies to fruit (roasted mango) and vegetables (gazpacho).

“We even have a New Orleans cookery coming, and you can get alligator on a stick,” Riley said.

This story was originally published August 31, 2017 at 6:55 AM with the headline "Harbor Days expands to include tribal activities, tall ships, sand sculpting —and beer."