Sunday, August 2, 2009

At the Greater Peninsula Future Festival in Port Gamble


Judy and I took the Edmonds ferry over to Kingston, and drove to Port Gamble on Friday, to help our friends Sandra and Andy set up the second annual Greater [Kitsap] Peninsula Future Fair. Sandra created the festival in 2008.

The open-air events featured several exhibits, demonstrations, lectures, discussion groups and kids' features by environmental organizations and companies. There were also many arts & crafts booths. The outstanding entertainment at the festival was mostly provided by the New Old time Chautauqua players, a collective of about 40 multi-talented performers:
Once the fair opened, Judy and I spent about three hours visiting the environmental organization and green capitalist (wind & solar power, green building, innovative composting products) booths. We also visited political booths there - the Kitsap County Democrats (Kitsap County is pretty blue), and other organizations involved in restoration concepts that some might consider "political."

Although Alaska has a lot of events, seminars, conferences and so on that have elements of what we experienced at the future festival, none seem to combine all these components, especially with the kid-friendly entertainment and crafts activities they provided.

Could we do something like this in Alaska? I'm sure we can. But what organization or group of orgs could? I'm not sure, but I was so impressed by what I saw, I'm going to put more effort into trying to get something together up north.

Here's a YouTube of the Chautauqua group's Aqua Chautauqua from 2008:

1 comment:

Neva Reece said...

Hey - I KNOW some of those people!! Yes it would be delightful if we had something like the Chataqua in Alaska. Count me in.