A close encounter with movie and TV actors is within reach on the North Olympic Peninsula.
But don’t expect them to dish on their co-stars.
They are the animals of the drive-through Olympic Game Farm in Sequim (3 miles northwest of downtown) at 1423 Ward Road (360-683-4295).
The game farm has its roots in the old Walt Disney nature movies and is still home to a number of the animal world’s TV and movie stars as well as its retired film and circus performers.
Many of the animals at the game farm, operated by its founder’s grandson, Robert Beebe, are still in training.
“We’ve been working a lot with a young bear and a young wolf,” Beebe said.
The two animals — both about a year old — seem to bask in the attention, wrestling and playing with each other whenever a camera is in the area.
Although some of the animals are being trained for film work, the focus of the game farm is to allow you an up-close and personal encounter from your car with wild animals.
Olympic Game Farm was started in the 1940s by Beebe’s grandfather, Lloyd Beebe, who worked with Disney and also provided the bear that starred with Dan Haggerty in TV’s “Grizzly Adams.”
“After the death of Roy Disney, the company really stopped its focus on nature films,” Beebe said. “So we were able in the 1970s to open it up to the public.
“Until that point, my grandpa had never had the chance to show off the animals because the farm was exclusively for the use of Disney.”
Olympic Game Farm is open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. during the winter, and there is a fee to tour the park by car or RV.
The game farm sells bread to feed the animals as motorists drive paved roads through its hills and pastures – but please, don’t feed the predators or the buffalo.
The animals seem to know when bread is in the offing.
Yaks, elk and llamas look longingly through car windows — and if visitors don’t keep their vehicles moving, they are completely surrounded within minutes.
Bears (which are behind fences) will ham it up for a slice or two of bread, waving or standing up.
Occasionally, Beebe said, people will deride him for training the animals and not giving them a more natural life.
“Living here, their lives are extended far beyond what it might be in nature, and they have a good life here,” he said.
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladaily.com. news.com.
