heralding fall

As the leaves turn color and the evenings become longer and crisper you know that Autumn is here. Now is a time for pumpkin flavored everything, cozy scarves and dreaming about outrageous Halloween costumes. Bonfire parties and apple picking adventures should be on your check list. But how do you embrace the spooky?

This changing of the season when summers explosive productivity begins to die into the stagnation of winter is full of elements of the occult. The Pacific Northwest is famous for its Autumn salmon runs – where dead fish litter the streams and rivers. Here death means life as the salmon’s last act is to spawn and fertilize the eggs of the next generation and their rotting carcasses are essential to the ecosystem as birds, bears and other animals feast on this fall bounty.

A fantastic place to experience this phenomenon is the Kennedy Creek Salmon Trail located off of Hwy 101 opens up for full tours with docents answering questions Saturday and Sunday, October 29 – November 27 (104 PM). This trail is maintained by the South Puget Sound Salmon Enhancement Group and their website is a great resource for learning about the trail and salmon ecology.

Beginning at the head of Oyster Bay, at the traditional site of the Sawamish/T’Peeksin village (ancestors of today’s Squaxin Island Tribe], this trail was once part of a greater network of Native American trails that connected South Puget Sound with the Pacific Coast. The Kennedy Creek was known as “Place of the Singing Fish” by the Squaxin Island Tribe due to the resonant singing of the frogs heard along the stream’s banks in the spring. Chum (or dog fish) are the dominant species that run this stream at numbers as high as 800,000 salmon a year. The Squaxin harvested these fish for oil and for food, drying them on racks. The salmon can be seen running right from the creek’s bank.

Fall is also a time when the eerie fungus proliferates. Not quite a plant and not quite an animal this parasitic organism loves the damp cooler temperatures, and the Olympic forests are full of these fairy-tale creatures. Pick up some mushroom identifying guidebooks or join a class and go picking! Or just take a hike and photograph these strange, otherworldly beings. [See page 17 for mushroom article]

The longer evenings mean you can catch up on your scary Netflix or enjoy a spooky movie at the Skyline DriveIn Theatre in Shelton. The Skyline is fun way to experience classic and new cinema. Don’t like the idea of being cramped in your car? Bring a cozy blanket and camp chairs and stake out your spot.

If real theatre is more your jam the Bremerton Community Theatre are offering the psychological thriller, The Turn of the Screw, from October 1-15 at the Robert B. Stewart Performance Hall. An adaption of Henry James’ classic gothic horror story – this play forces the audience to be the judge – is this a ghost story or a tragic account of an hysterical breakdown? Is the protagonist, a governess employed at a remote country estate, suffering paranoid delusion or is she bravely struggling to protect her two students against two malevolent ghosts (or are they ghosts?)? In the end, the narrative begs the question of which is more terrifying –battling the supernatural or battling a sick mind?

I personally would stop there in the pursuit of the spooky (maybe add rereading Edgar Allan Poe or Harry Potter) but for the braver folks out there with an interest in the supernatural, did you know there are several local “haunts” (yes, pun intended)?

Perched on the hilltop above Union is the haunted Victorian mansion known as the McReavy House. Built in 1890 by the enterprising lumberman and town founder, John McReavy, this house was listed in 2007 on the Washington Trust for Historical Places with the status of “most endangered places.” John McReavy was an important figure in Union’s history as he built the hotel, wharf, sawmill, store, Masonic Lodge and church. He also served as the postmaster and on the territorial legislature from 1869 to 1889 where he was one of the signatories for the document declaring the statehood of Washington. He platted land around Union on dreams that the railway would travel through the area on its way to the Port Townsend terminus.

He advertised Union as the “Venice of Pacific.” The 1893 depression dampened these dreams, when Tacoma was

October 27 | 4-6 PM