The second annual Bellingham SeaFeast on September 22 and 23 will showcase and celebrate Whatcom County’s maritime heritage, bustling working waterfront, internationally-renowned fishing and seafood industries, and unsurpassed culinary bounty. And while there will be plenty of good eats to enjoy, SeaFeast 2017 organizers want the community to see and understand the wide variety of operations that work together to bring them the seafood they love.
SeaFeast Co-Manager Pete Granger, coordinator of the festival’s commercial fishing activities, grew up in a fishing and maritime family and wants to share the rich heritage of the industry with locals and visitors alike.
“My father was a salmon tenderman before WWII,” Granger shared. Granger began fishing for salmon in the reefnet fishery off of Lummi Island when he was a sophomore in high school. Over the years he has worked a wide variety of jobs in the maritime field. From managing salmon canneries in Alaska after college to overseeing a 20-person marine outreach program at University of Washington Sea Grant for the past 15 years, Granger knows a little something about the industry.
“I have sold fish, processed fish, headed fishermen’s trade associations as a lobbyist and as a generic marketer for West Coast and Alaska seafood,” he said.
One thing Granger has noticed over his many years working with and around seafood is that many people in Whatcom County are not familiar with the breadth of the maritime industry here. “They know other major sectors such as agriculture and the Cherry Point industrial complex and health sector, but don’t know that maritime employs over 6,000 direct and indirect jobs here,” he explained.
Bellingham SeaFeast helps educate the public about these skills and trades by putting the maritime industry on display for the general public to witness and interact with. “SeaFeast will provide examples of fishing boats to show the public how the fish they buy at the market or in restaurants are caught,” said Granger. “They will see the equipment needed on the boat to catch the fish. Fishermen will be there to explain these operations and to take them on interpretative dock walks.”
It takes an incredible amount of skill and training to be a fisherman. Fishermen must be well-versed in things that seem more obvious, such as navigation, steering and running a boat, engine repair and net building and mending. But crew management, finance and accounting are extremely important as well. “They are all self-employed businesses,” said Granger.
While those of us who love to eat seafood may have a good sense of what kind of fish we enjoy or how we like to eat our oysters, many of us have no real understanding of the wide variety of skills and specialized crafts employed by the people who work in maritime trades. Bellingham SeaFeast 2017 will change all that.
The Friday night festivities take place in downtown Bellingham, featuring a SeaFeed at Depot Market Square (tickets available online at www.BellinghamSeaFeast.com). FisherPoets-on-Bellingham Bay will also perform original poems, videos and storytelling of life at sea at four different downtown venues. A $5 badge gets you into all four.
On Saturday, September 23, 11:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. at Zuanich Point Park/Squalicum Harbor, Bellingham SeaFeast attendees can take part in commercial fishing activities in the active harbor of Bellingham Bay including:
- Meet Your Fishermen: Dock walks, boat visits, knot-tying and net-mending demos, and much more.
- Demos: Learn to fillet, to crack crab and to prepare your seafood.
- Two Harbor Boat Rides and Tours of Ice House and Fish-Processing Plant and the Downtown Waterfront: Limited-capacity trips to Bellingham Cold Storage & Home Port Seafoods (walking), and by boat a tour of the waterfront redevelopment area. Advance tickets are available online.
There’s also a land-only, free tour of All-American Marine boat builders at 1010 Hilton Ave.
“[Attendees] will have the opportunity to travel by boat to a large processing facility, Bellingham Cold Storage, to see its operation of processing, freezing and storing seafood and all the various skills needed for that operation,” Granger shared. “They will also see a vital public agency, the Coast Guard, and how it works locally to ensure the safety of commercial and recreational boats.”
SeaFeast attendees can board a Coast Guard cutter, and a Coast Guard helicopter will arrive from Port Angeles at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday to demonstrate an at-sea helicopter rescue.
“The maritime sector provides good-paying, year-round jobs located right here in Whatcom County,” said Granger. “Other sectors include boatbuilding, boat service and maintenance, public and private boatyards and marinas, net and rope manufacturers, cold storages and more.”
So come enjoy the wide variety of family-friendly, hands-on educational activities along Bellingham’s waterfront during Bellingham SeaFeast 2017. You’ll never take our delicious local seafood for granted again!
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