B.C.’s oldest shipyard is set to come alive with enchanting mermaids, marauding pirates, a storytelling wharf rat and creatures from the deep as the Richmond Maritime Festival docks in Steveston for another year.
Visitors strolling along the restored boardwalks will be greeted on the weekend of Aug. 8-10 with all manner of free performances — stilt walkers, drummers, dancers and story tellers — at the city run event where close encounters of the marine kind, plus many others, will be dotted across the 3.5-hectare (8.5-acre) site on the Steveston waterfront.
Children of all ages will learn local lore, and try their hand at a unique variety of arts and crafts from creating a driftwood mandala— a complex abstract circular design — to knitting a tree cosy.
Plus, there will be all manner of food and drink vendors eager to satisfy customers.
This year’s festival runs three full days — from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
If it’s music in the great outdoors you are craving, the festival’s opening night features the roots blues, zydeco, swamp pop and folk sounds of The Swamp Dogs which will be performing from 5-7 p.m.
To help celebrate the 125th anniversary of Britannia Shipyards there will be a flotilla of historic boats and ships that will be available for viewing and boarding from the 190-metre long (600-foot) dock.
Visitors can also tour many of the historic buildings, several of which have been restored to reflect their original roles in the West Coast fishing industry.
The exhibits include the Chinese Bunkhouse, which re-imagines the cramped living quarters of the hundreds of Chinese workers employed in the 14 fishing canneries that once punctuated the lively Steveston waterfront. Visitors can also check out the storied MV Fleetwood, once the fastest boat on the West Coast, with a notorious past as a rum runner during American prohibition when Canadian alcohol was smuggled by the boatload into the U.S.
For more details, visit the festival website at www.richmondmaritimefestival.ca. The festival is also on Facebook at richmondmaritimefestival and follow @FunRichmond on Twitter for updates.
