Thank you for writing this. I feel like no one remembers the farms, the logging, or even the railroad families that built this area. Our history is being plowed under to make way for people who have no clue and don't care.
You're welcome. I remember the tracks crossing Washington Street, three mills with high wage jobs in PA, and Darigold tanker trucks transporting milk to Seattle markets. It doesn't seem like that long ago.
3 mills? Penply, Fiberboard, Crown Z, and Rainer. I remember 4. I also remember all the logging trucks zooming around Lake Crescent, the GIANT log booms out in the sound, hiking out to the end of said log booms to spend the day bass fishing and shrimping. The best place on the planet to grow up…and now Washington isnt even worth living in anymore, and PA leads the state in being a dump!
I remember some years ago, mid-late 80's a Kidd couple who owned the Town Tavern in Sequim. Super nice people. It was all the awesome business owners I met who rubbed off on me and put the seeds in my head to start my own business and ultimately leaving the SPD. (Rex?)
Also. M&R Lumber, and several shake and shingle mills around the area, train car loads of pulp and paper from PA mills to Port Townsend, and via barge to Seattle. The two mills at Discovery Bay, 3 to 5 log loads running up and down Highway 101, and a fishing fleet at the Boat Haven in Port Angeles. Being a paperboy in Port Angeles, carrying the Chronicle, Port Angeles Evening News, the Seattle PI and Times, I saw so many things on my routes at dark-thirty that most people, other than the Dairy Farmers milking, and the semi-rigs hauling that milk, DAIRYGOLD or CARNATION delivery drivers, all missed while sleeping or working graveyard shifts at the many mills. I don't visit Port Angeles much these days, it's depressing. I learned my appreciation of farms and farmers in Agnew, Dungeness Valley to Sequim Bay. We still have haycrop acreage that borders our "lawn", with no fencing.
3 mills? Penply, Fiberboard, Crown Z, and Rainer. I remember 4. I also remember all the logging trucks zooming around Lake Crescent, the GIANT log booms out in the sound, hiking out to the end of said log booms to spend the day bass fishing and shrimping. The best place on the planet to grow up…and now Washington isnt even worth living in anymore, and PA leads the state in being a dump!
I stumbled into CCW just recently and chanced upon this post just now. I haven't been there for a few years now but not too long ago, most of the old cabins at Lincoln Park were from the original Wasankari Homestead and built around 1883 or so. The oldest ones are more rough cut and a couple more modern ones can be determined by smoother planing and such. At one point there was graffiti in most of them as well as empty beer cans and cigarette butts. Heck, nowadays there could be homeless people living in them for all I know. In the early 2000's I was shipping out a small box of small driftwood pieces and was actually selling a bit of it online to artist/crafty people. The gal at the Clallam Bay post office started to lecture me about how "the locals really don't appreciate it when newcomers sell off the natural resources". To which I asked her how long she had lived here. Not very long, come to find out. The selling of local resources is a big reason as to why we are even on a map to begin with.
As a sidenote, Kevin Kennedy was also extremely instrumental in starting the logging show. I personally know it’s been a true labor of love for everyone who laborers over this event and those that participate. Thank you Sequim Logging show, it truly is what Sequim is/was about. Can’t wait for some of Lyle and Donna‘s BBQ and looking forward to having a beer with some old Sequim souls tonight at the loggers ball.
Also, it may also be the last time fireworks will be present due to some transplants that have moved in and want to control and ruin what Sequim was about.
Sequim city council is just moving the area in Carrie Blake Park, due to the fact there is an eagles nest with 2 babies in the nest near the area that they used to set them off, not because of transplants. Plenty of sky to still enjoy the fireworks.
Can’t wait bringing the kiddos with their ear muffs who LOVE tractors & all boy stuff, yeah go babe! What fun stuff for all to go & enjoy, thank you for making such an enjoyable event free & helping to bring community together.
This is a fun, inspiring, and beloved Sequim tradition. Jeff, thank you for reporting on the Logging Show and all the many events at the Irrigation Festival. We, who are new to Sequim, appreciate all the special attention to all the volunteers who make our town a special place. Enjoy your weekend celebrating!
I hope Ben Gilbert is still in the memory of people in Sequim. Ben would be parked somewhere to get traffic to slow down and chain-smoking cigarettes. Looking back, I think he hated writing tickets as much as I did. Back in the olden days the SPD bought used patrol cars from the WSP in or around 100,000 on the odometer. Eric of Eric's RV convinced Joe Hawe (the chief) to convert these cars to propane which was fine unless you were sent out of town for training, then good luck finding propane out yonder, anyway.... When I was promoted to Sgt and Ben retired (he and Gwenny owned Gwenny's Restaurant) (mostly she did) I ended up with his Dodge Diplomat, probably a 1983 or older, and it was the same car, different color, as the one Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry bashed to death going down those steep hills in SF. I tried to kill that car but it kept on going just like in that movie. Anyway, the car had been maroon but by the time I was stuck with it it was an honest dark pink. It was almost an undercover car accidently because it was friggin' pink. I was going to some sort of police training after my promotion to Burien, was not in uniform and was waiting for a ferry when big billowing black smoke began to pour out of the engine compartment at the ferry dock. I had a Mossberg pistol grip shotgun electronically locked under the dash and I was afraid the whole car was going to burn up. So I grabbed the shotgun and stood outside my car until, miraculously, the smoke stopped and I went on my way. I did show my police ID to a state ferry worker do alleviate his fear and regret for coming to work that day. It all worked out, praise Jesus.
The Logging Show is what remains of the old Sequim Irrigation Festival, the Festival itself has lost it's relevance; irrigation, dairy, beef, and crop farms with associated businesses such as the creamery, Clallam Co-op and grainery, the railroads, loggers who cleared the valley to build the original farms in the first place, and the many generations involved in carrying water from the Dungeness River to all of the farms and crops in the valley. I feel very fortunate to have lived, worked and paid my living expenses by way of bucking bales, setting irrigation pipe from dawn until every setting was completed late in the evening, driving a combine for 12+ hour days, tending livestock, with maintaining the various tools and equipment The last Irrigation Festival that I volunteered to set up stage, trusses and sound system was the 100th in 1995. My work took me out of the area not long afterward, though I kept my home in Agnew, where my wife and I currently live. So many people have made the Logging Show and Irrigation Festival, the oldest continuing Festival in Washington State possibile, carrying our heritage and livelihoods into the next generations. When the Elk became the mascot of Sequim, I could see that our area had been fundamentally transformed into something I left back in California; box stores, cul-de-sacs with cookie cutter houses, with "boutiques" and espresso stands; Sequim has lost the small rural farm town charm that attracted people here, with the lyrics of a song, "The last Resort", by Eagles summing it up succinctly. I miss the days of getting behind a Massey Ferguson tractor pulling a baler or hay rake down Washington Street (also Highway 101) to the next field, stopped at the only light in town. I had the privilege of taking the last train out of town, from Sequim Train Station to Discovery Bay, and return, during the Irrigation Festival in 1981(?). Thank you to everyone who keeps the spirit alive, from the Bekkevar Family generagtions, to all who have lived and departed since the first sailing vessels brought settlers and their livestock to log and farm New Dungeness, the Sequim Prairie, and beyond. Our area has a rich and varied history that is quickly being lost to trinkets and souvenirs from China, akin to the carnivals and circus' that have set up at the high school athletic fields over the years. Do take in the Logging Show and activities, it is a day well spent and educational. Thanks again, Jeff.
I did some logging back in the late 70's, early 80's. Choker Setter, Rigging Slinger, Timber Feller, even a Hook Tender for a Summer season...hardest work I ever did but it does make you feel like a MAN for as long as you can take it! There aren't too many Old, Bold, Loggers! Good memories. Simpler times.😎
(shhhh!) I grew up in Western New York - transferred to UW from JC to pursue forestry degree at UW. Met my future wife in forestry school and have lived in Port Angeles since 1985. I appreciate your efforts to hold our elected officials accountable despite criticism from their acolytes.
We should be paying respect to trees (large and tall) still in the ground. Instead a festival of what once was. I feel guilt and sadness about the logging industry. Through progress came reckless stewardship. Joni Mitchell was so unfortunately right about Tree Museums.
If only we had grasped the lessons of living lightly on the planet.
Maybe we could... if we were wise enough to have conscious procreation, limiting our demands on Nature...but this place is a free-will-free-for-all-zone and this is how it looks.
Thinking of another tradition, I am happy to have met, insofar as good role models in my younger day, Mike Reichner who I met during the short time Charlies Gym was at the.... old Safeway Plaza in Sequim (Summer, '86). Mike was a park ranger out at Sequim Bay Park. I remember Mike telling me that he'd gone to a business seminar and that they mentioned that Lavender was expected to be a big thing. He planted tons of it. He grew wealthy and moved to someplace I can't remember. Mike Reichner STARTED the entire Sequim Lavender Fest. I also sold him my old Ford Pickup back then.
You're welcome. Let me know if you have any ideas for "Feel Good Fridays"... the do-gooders in our community are surprisingly hard to find and coerce into an interview.
There is much natural beauty here. Articles about hiking the trails, fishing the seas, exploring new restaurants, family fun events, parks, picnics, the Discovery Trail, where you can go on an e-bike, to name a few.
Thank you for writing this. I feel like no one remembers the farms, the logging, or even the railroad families that built this area. Our history is being plowed under to make way for people who have no clue and don't care.
You're welcome. I remember the tracks crossing Washington Street, three mills with high wage jobs in PA, and Darigold tanker trucks transporting milk to Seattle markets. It doesn't seem like that long ago.
3 mills? Penply, Fiberboard, Crown Z, and Rainer. I remember 4. I also remember all the logging trucks zooming around Lake Crescent, the GIANT log booms out in the sound, hiking out to the end of said log booms to spend the day bass fishing and shrimping. The best place on the planet to grow up…and now Washington isnt even worth living in anymore, and PA leads the state in being a dump!
I remember some years ago, mid-late 80's a Kidd couple who owned the Town Tavern in Sequim. Super nice people. It was all the awesome business owners I met who rubbed off on me and put the seeds in my head to start my own business and ultimately leaving the SPD. (Rex?)
I can't remember who owned that. Gosh, hadn't thought of that in years.
Also. M&R Lumber, and several shake and shingle mills around the area, train car loads of pulp and paper from PA mills to Port Townsend, and via barge to Seattle. The two mills at Discovery Bay, 3 to 5 log loads running up and down Highway 101, and a fishing fleet at the Boat Haven in Port Angeles. Being a paperboy in Port Angeles, carrying the Chronicle, Port Angeles Evening News, the Seattle PI and Times, I saw so many things on my routes at dark-thirty that most people, other than the Dairy Farmers milking, and the semi-rigs hauling that milk, DAIRYGOLD or CARNATION delivery drivers, all missed while sleeping or working graveyard shifts at the many mills. I don't visit Port Angeles much these days, it's depressing. I learned my appreciation of farms and farmers in Agnew, Dungeness Valley to Sequim Bay. We still have haycrop acreage that borders our "lawn", with no fencing.
Right!!?! It’s insane it’s been 40 years.. SO MUCH has changed…. I’m nostalgic for the days of “yesterday”
3 mills? Penply, Fiberboard, Crown Z, and Rainer. I remember 4. I also remember all the logging trucks zooming around Lake Crescent, the GIANT log booms out in the sound, hiking out to the end of said log booms to spend the day bass fishing and shrimping. The best place on the planet to grow up…and now Washington isnt even worth living in anymore, and PA leads the state in being a dump!
I stumbled into CCW just recently and chanced upon this post just now. I haven't been there for a few years now but not too long ago, most of the old cabins at Lincoln Park were from the original Wasankari Homestead and built around 1883 or so. The oldest ones are more rough cut and a couple more modern ones can be determined by smoother planing and such. At one point there was graffiti in most of them as well as empty beer cans and cigarette butts. Heck, nowadays there could be homeless people living in them for all I know. In the early 2000's I was shipping out a small box of small driftwood pieces and was actually selling a bit of it online to artist/crafty people. The gal at the Clallam Bay post office started to lecture me about how "the locals really don't appreciate it when newcomers sell off the natural resources". To which I asked her how long she had lived here. Not very long, come to find out. The selling of local resources is a big reason as to why we are even on a map to begin with.
I remember. I was 10yrs old in 1988 when the Logging Show began. I’ve watched it evolve & the crowds grow over the decades- but I remember
As a sidenote, Kevin Kennedy was also extremely instrumental in starting the logging show. I personally know it’s been a true labor of love for everyone who laborers over this event and those that participate. Thank you Sequim Logging show, it truly is what Sequim is/was about. Can’t wait for some of Lyle and Donna‘s BBQ and looking forward to having a beer with some old Sequim souls tonight at the loggers ball.
Yes! That was certainly overlooked, I don't know how Kevin finds time to do so much for his hometown. Our community sure benefits from his support.
Best of Sequim IMHO
Perfect timing. I was asked yesterday what I've got going on this weekend went down my list of chores. The chores will have to wait.
Also, it may also be the last time fireworks will be present due to some transplants that have moved in and want to control and ruin what Sequim was about.
Sequim city council is just moving the area in Carrie Blake Park, due to the fact there is an eagles nest with 2 babies in the nest near the area that they used to set them off, not because of transplants. Plenty of sky to still enjoy the fireworks.
We shall see what happens next year
Can’t wait bringing the kiddos with their ear muffs who LOVE tractors & all boy stuff, yeah go babe! What fun stuff for all to go & enjoy, thank you for making such an enjoyable event free & helping to bring community together.
This is a fun, inspiring, and beloved Sequim tradition. Jeff, thank you for reporting on the Logging Show and all the many events at the Irrigation Festival. We, who are new to Sequim, appreciate all the special attention to all the volunteers who make our town a special place. Enjoy your weekend celebrating!
I hope Ben Gilbert is still in the memory of people in Sequim. Ben would be parked somewhere to get traffic to slow down and chain-smoking cigarettes. Looking back, I think he hated writing tickets as much as I did. Back in the olden days the SPD bought used patrol cars from the WSP in or around 100,000 on the odometer. Eric of Eric's RV convinced Joe Hawe (the chief) to convert these cars to propane which was fine unless you were sent out of town for training, then good luck finding propane out yonder, anyway.... When I was promoted to Sgt and Ben retired (he and Gwenny owned Gwenny's Restaurant) (mostly she did) I ended up with his Dodge Diplomat, probably a 1983 or older, and it was the same car, different color, as the one Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry bashed to death going down those steep hills in SF. I tried to kill that car but it kept on going just like in that movie. Anyway, the car had been maroon but by the time I was stuck with it it was an honest dark pink. It was almost an undercover car accidently because it was friggin' pink. I was going to some sort of police training after my promotion to Burien, was not in uniform and was waiting for a ferry when big billowing black smoke began to pour out of the engine compartment at the ferry dock. I had a Mossberg pistol grip shotgun electronically locked under the dash and I was afraid the whole car was going to burn up. So I grabbed the shotgun and stood outside my car until, miraculously, the smoke stopped and I went on my way. I did show my police ID to a state ferry worker do alleviate his fear and regret for coming to work that day. It all worked out, praise Jesus.
The Logging Show is what remains of the old Sequim Irrigation Festival, the Festival itself has lost it's relevance; irrigation, dairy, beef, and crop farms with associated businesses such as the creamery, Clallam Co-op and grainery, the railroads, loggers who cleared the valley to build the original farms in the first place, and the many generations involved in carrying water from the Dungeness River to all of the farms and crops in the valley. I feel very fortunate to have lived, worked and paid my living expenses by way of bucking bales, setting irrigation pipe from dawn until every setting was completed late in the evening, driving a combine for 12+ hour days, tending livestock, with maintaining the various tools and equipment The last Irrigation Festival that I volunteered to set up stage, trusses and sound system was the 100th in 1995. My work took me out of the area not long afterward, though I kept my home in Agnew, where my wife and I currently live. So many people have made the Logging Show and Irrigation Festival, the oldest continuing Festival in Washington State possibile, carrying our heritage and livelihoods into the next generations. When the Elk became the mascot of Sequim, I could see that our area had been fundamentally transformed into something I left back in California; box stores, cul-de-sacs with cookie cutter houses, with "boutiques" and espresso stands; Sequim has lost the small rural farm town charm that attracted people here, with the lyrics of a song, "The last Resort", by Eagles summing it up succinctly. I miss the days of getting behind a Massey Ferguson tractor pulling a baler or hay rake down Washington Street (also Highway 101) to the next field, stopped at the only light in town. I had the privilege of taking the last train out of town, from Sequim Train Station to Discovery Bay, and return, during the Irrigation Festival in 1981(?). Thank you to everyone who keeps the spirit alive, from the Bekkevar Family generagtions, to all who have lived and departed since the first sailing vessels brought settlers and their livestock to log and farm New Dungeness, the Sequim Prairie, and beyond. Our area has a rich and varied history that is quickly being lost to trinkets and souvenirs from China, akin to the carnivals and circus' that have set up at the high school athletic fields over the years. Do take in the Logging Show and activities, it is a day well spent and educational. Thanks again, Jeff.
Thank you for the ode to Sequim.
I did some logging back in the late 70's, early 80's. Choker Setter, Rigging Slinger, Timber Feller, even a Hook Tender for a Summer season...hardest work I ever did but it does make you feel like a MAN for as long as you can take it! There aren't too many Old, Bold, Loggers! Good memories. Simpler times.😎
That is crazy, dangerous work. As much as I don’t want trees cut down, I respect those that did the work and lived.
Somewhere Albert Haller is smiling.
Wow, that's a dead giveaway you're from Sequim.
(shhhh!) I grew up in Western New York - transferred to UW from JC to pursue forestry degree at UW. Met my future wife in forestry school and have lived in Port Angeles since 1985. I appreciate your efforts to hold our elected officials accountable despite criticism from their acolytes.
We should be paying respect to trees (large and tall) still in the ground. Instead a festival of what once was. I feel guilt and sadness about the logging industry. Through progress came reckless stewardship. Joni Mitchell was so unfortunately right about Tree Museums.
If only we had grasped the lessons of living lightly on the planet.
Maybe we could... if we were wise enough to have conscious procreation, limiting our demands on Nature...but this place is a free-will-free-for-all-zone and this is how it looks.
Maybe we'll do better next time!😊
Thinking of another tradition, I am happy to have met, insofar as good role models in my younger day, Mike Reichner who I met during the short time Charlies Gym was at the.... old Safeway Plaza in Sequim (Summer, '86). Mike was a park ranger out at Sequim Bay Park. I remember Mike telling me that he'd gone to a business seminar and that they mentioned that Lavender was expected to be a big thing. He planted tons of it. He grew wealthy and moved to someplace I can't remember. Mike Reichner STARTED the entire Sequim Lavender Fest. I also sold him my old Ford Pickup back then.
Yep, I was in 7th grade. Look what it became.
What great family fun and a reminder of our heritage!
Thank you for the feel-good article, Jeff. It will be one of the many things I will miss about Sequim, driven out by corrupt Democrats!
You're welcome. Let me know if you have any ideas for "Feel Good Fridays"... the do-gooders in our community are surprisingly hard to find and coerce into an interview.
There is much natural beauty here. Articles about hiking the trails, fishing the seas, exploring new restaurants, family fun events, parks, picnics, the Discovery Trail, where you can go on an e-bike, to name a few.
Great tips. Thanks.
See you there!
Love the article. We will ride our bikes down there and visit your booth. Thanks again Jeff
Look forward to seeing you!