SEQUIM — One of the first things you’ll see, framed by the evergreens: fish, out of water, welcoming you.
The “salmon greeters,” humans encased in salmonid costumes, are part of the biggest-ever Dungeness River Festival today through Sunday at Railroad Bridge Park.
Gretha Davis, a volunteer at the park’s Dungeness River Audubon Center, was inspired to create the fish suits.
They’re made of indoor-outdoor carpet, with tin-can lids for eyes. Animated by Davis and other volunteers, they will hang around by the Dungeness River as people arrive for the weekend’s activities.
The festival, like the river itself, is a rich ecosystem of drumming and stories told by Jamestown S’Klallam tribal members, a morning bird walk, a driftwood art show — and running through it all, music from the Kentucky Bullfrog band, the Sound Waves from Five Acre School, Green Light Situation from Sequim and the Jamestown Drummers and Dancers.
New events
This year’s 10th Dungeness River Festival features several new events.
Tonight at Sequim High School, for example, Jaye Moore of the Northwest Raptor Center will give a free presentation, with live birds of prey, on her wildlife rehabilitation work.
On Saturday at 10 a.m., the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe will host a drumming circle in Railroad Bridge Park.
At 11 a.m. Saturday, the Clallam County Rescue Team will conduct a swift-water rescue demonstration in the Dungeness.
On both Saturday and Sunday, the Olympic Driftwood Sculptors will celebrate their first anniversary with a show and sale at the Railroad Bridge Park from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Visitors will have plenty of reasons to pause contemplatively beside or above the river.
Walks, presentations
A “How They Built the Bridge” talk on the historic trestle starts at 2 p.m. Saturday; at 1 p.m. and again at 3 p.m., Joe Holtrop will lead walks into the woods. Holtrop, manager of the Clallam Conservation District, will highlight native plants and explain ways to integrate them into landscapes and gardens.
Sunday morning will begin with a bird walk at 9 a.m., and that afternoon, Kentucky Bullfrog’s young players will provide bluegrass in the River Center courtyard.
Filling out the weekend: other nature-oriented activities, fresh food from The Sauer Kraut deli and bakery and more live music.
So the festival furnishes reasons to gather at the river in late September. Yet this place is both soothing and harmonious the rest of the year, said Bob Boekelheide, director of the River Center and leader of Wednesday morning bird walks.
He meets people from around the country who have found their way here to the Dungeness and gush to him about its charms: the water music, the span providing views of the river’s clear channels.
That combination of wooden bridge, flowing water and an enfolding woods are, Boekelheide said, free therapy.
“Every day,” he added, “people come and say, ‘You’ve got a treasure here.'”
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com