This year was the 22nd annual Richmond Maritime Festival and it offered lots of fun activities combined with learning about our nautical history. The event took place at Britannia Shipyards National Historic Site in Steveston this past Saturday and Sunday.
As an island surrounded by two arms of the Fraser River, our city is ideally situated to conduct a festival that presents beautiful, authentic wooden boats and working vessels with a host of other activities.
This free event was open to everyone and was superbly managed by Richmond staff, exhibitors and a large assembly of helpful volunteers.
This year continued the dynamic tradition of restored vessels, live music, displays and workshops by regional artists, walkabouts by the Three Stilting Sea Serpents and the Cannery Mermaids, puppet shows, various food trucks and much more.
On the docks, 14 Maritime Heritage Vessels drew crowds who saw firsthand some examples of our sea-going history.
On the festival grounds, performances took place both on and off stage. The puppet show featured the ever-popular Rikki the Rat. The Richmond youth-based Taiko Group and Japanese festival dancers brought their extraordinary talents to the stage.
Many more excellent performers provided continuous entertainment.
Arts and crafts were well represented, with hands-on craft areas featuring boat design. Other crafts included the opportunity to create a cyanotype print, a crochet circle, paint by numbers and basic origami.
The Steveston Maritime Modellers displayed their beautiful scale model wooden ships.
The Knitting Tree provided children and adults with the opportunity to learn to crochet and knit — and add their creations to a collaborative art installation.
Joy Baker involved her audience in the colouring of a giant maritime mural — a paint-by-numbers scene that included ships and mermaids.
The Richmond Maritime Festival was presented by the City of Richmond, Richmond Arts Coalition and the Britannia Shipyards National Historic Site Society. Funding support came from the Department of Canadian Heritage through the Canadian Heritage Building Communities through Arts and Heritage grant program and the Province of British Columbia.
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