With the 2020 event canceled, Olympia Kiwanis say they can no longer host Harbor Days
Harbor Days, Olympia’s annual celebration of maritime history, is in crisis as a result of the coronavirus, but organizers are working to find a way to keep the Labor Day weekend tradition alive.
“As a country, we’re going to see a lot of these traditional festivals lost,” said festival executive director Carol Riley, “and I’m hoping that we don’t lose Harbor Days.”
The Olympia Kiwanis Club, which in April canceled the 47th annual Harbor Days planned for this September, announced Thursday that it will no longer host the event.
The cancellation cost the service club tens of thousands of dollars, said club president Denise Steigers. The virus and restrictions aimed at containing it have left the club struggling to raise funds for its other community service projects, including gardens that grow 30,000 pounds of produce each year for the Thurston County Food Bank and a firewood bank that delivers wood to families in need.
“It’s horrible,” Steigers told The Olympian. “Harbor Days was a wonderful community event, and we couldn’t financially support it any more. We were in a position of having to make very, very difficult choices.”
“The festival is loved by the community and the people who attend it from out of town,” the festival’s Riley said. “We have visitors from not just the Seattle area but from Canada, from Colorado, from Utah and all the western states.”
The South Sound Maritime Heritage Association, which ran the festival until the Kiwanis Club took it over in 2009, is scrambling to keep the tradition alive.
The maritime association is committed to continuing the festival, said Don Chalmers, the group’s president, but a lot of help will be needed to put on a festival of Harbor Days’ scale and complexity.
The event is centered around vintage tugboat races and other water activities and draws crowds year after year with its abundance of booths selling arts, crafts and food. It has evolved in recent years to include more maritime-themed educational activities for children and a focus on Northwest native history with the participation of the Squaxin Island Tribe.
“It’s clear to our board that our association by itself would not be in a position to sponsor and carry out the festival,” Chalmers told The Olympian. “We’re a small group of people. We’re dedicated people, but we have limited resources.”
He’s planning an online meeting to talk about next steps and asking interested groups and individuals to get in touch with him by email.
Meanwhile, the association hopes to present an online event this year.
“We want to keep Harbor Days going virtually during this time, so that the festival, which has been operating for 47 years, isn’t lost because of the COVID emergency,” he told The Olympian.
Harbor Days needs you
Interested in pitching in to make Harbor Days 2021 a reality? Contact Don Chalmers with the South Sound Maritime Heritage Association at donchalmers007@hotmail.com.
This story was originally published July 27, 2020 at 5:45 AM.