spooktacular

Get ready for Downtown Shelton’s annual Halloween Spooktacular! Once again, the Shelton Downtown Merchants have teamed up with the Mason Chamber to bring you a delightful evening of Halloween festivities. Get your costumes ready and join us for a night of trick-or-treat fun at the Halloween Spooktacular!

Calling all goblins, ghosts, and witches – the entire community is invited to take part in an enchanting evening of trick-or-treating with our fantastic local businesses. Mark your calendars for Friday, October 27, from 4:00 to 6:00pm

Prepare for a fun-filled experience as you stroll along the sidewalks, collecting treats & surprises from our friendly merchants.

Railroad Ave from 1st to 5th will transform into a pedestrian paradise, ensuring that everyone can roam freely and enjoy Halloween spirit safely.

Additionally, businesses and organizations (downtown or not) are invited to join in the fun! With extra space along Railroad and in Evergreen Square, if you're eager to contribute to the Halloween magic, let us know.

Sheltondowntownmerchants.com chosen as the Pacific railway terminus leaving Port Townsend and Hood Canal high and dry. McReavy lost nearly everything except his mansion on the hill. After McReavy’s death in 1918 his daughter Helen McReavy Andersen remained there for over fifty years. She published her memoirs in 1960, How When and Where on Hood Canal, and charmingly describes how the McReavy house was a repository of local history:

“I have done no research except in “This Old House” – scrapbooks, letters and books from its shelves. Credit must go to my husband who jeopardized his bronchials by pushing through dust and cobwebs to trunks and boxes down in dark corners of a dirt flood basement and up in the dusty attic inhabited by bats, spiders, sawbugs and ants, for the many letters and documents which seemed invaluable.” [1960:5]

Helen and her husband were the last residents of McReavy House. Helen passed away in 1969 and her husband a year later. The house sat empty as ivy and blackberries tried to take the mansion back to the earth. In 2007, the house was donated by the Visser Family (descendants of the McReavy family) to be used as a community asset. Since then, the McReavy House non-profit organization has raised funds and coordinated volunteers slowly returning its Victorian grandeur revealing fine wood floors and woodworking details, while adding conveniences such as a kitchen and a fully functioning bathroom.

McReavy House also has the distinction of being haunted. At least two paranormal investigating teams have conducted research here. In 2009, ten members of LORE (League of Occult Research and Education), a medium, and a couple skeptics camped out overnight and conducted research.

The experienced eerie weather (thunderstorms in July), a power outage and the medium raised several paranormal connections (including a conversation with John McReavy himself) but one skeptic attendee, Ric Hallock described the evening to the Kitsap Sun (July 17, 2009) as:

“as being akin to a grown-up version of camp night, where the campers would gather about a fire nestled deep amid rustling trees and snapping branches as a camp counselor weaved a tale of suspense and terror of a haunted night long ago

Private Life Are Put Under

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at the very site. The scariest moment I had was while driving away and pointing down Main Street on a very, very steep incline and imagining the brakes giving way to a fast and furious ride down the hill, across a short gravel parking lot and straight into the cold waters of Hood Canal. That would be a chilly fright indeed.” regularly presents historical Ghost Walks with stops at the museum, Community Centre, the cemetery, and the infamous Walker-Ames house.

In April of 2010, McReavy House was again visited by ghostly investigators. The Olympic Peninsula Paranormal Society used 8 DVR camera system, two Camcorders, many audio recorders, Ghost Box (a radio device which randomly scan AM and FM frequencies, presenting the audio as the words of spirits) and Dowsing rods. Photos, video and 28 instances of electronic voice phenomena (EVP) audio were recorded. The audio recordings are of various answers to the investigators questions seemingly by spirits in the room. Also observed were unexplainable door closures and paper moving – maybe an unaccounted-for draft? Or maybe the movements of a restless ghost?

Next up, no self-respecting Pacific Northwest bookstore would be complete without a copy of the iconic and enduring memoir of M. Wylie Blanchet, The Curve of Time (1962). Canadian travel writer Blanchet presents vignettes of summertime boating excursions with her five children (and sometimes dog) up the Inside Passage of British Columbia during the 1920s and 1930s. Not simply a travelogue, Blanchet describes the book as "neither a story nor a log; it is just an account of many long sunny summer months, during many years when the children were young and old enough to take on camping holidays up the coast of British Columbia.” As a single mother widowed in 1926 when her husband was mysteriously lost at sea, the adventures in this book are a remarkable testament to overcoming grief. However, grief is not what colors the passages – instead wonder in the natural beauty of the coast is the undercurrent that drives the writing. This book is lauded as a great literary maritime masterpiece, and it is perfect to be read when you are on your own Northwest adventure.

Ghostly apparitions have been reported at this model town since at least the 1950s. Port Gamble also hosts the yearly Ghost Conference. This three-day event (November 10-12) provides classes and lectures on the paranormal, including psychics, sensing energy, hypnosis, UFO’s, palmistry, and animal spirits. Additionally, at this event there are several opportunities to take part in paranormal investigations with experts in the field of the historic buildings of Port Gamble.

Above is only a taste of the books loved at the Vault. Oh yes, they have quite a TASTE for seafood cookbooks and oyster manuals too at the Vault – but those did not make this review. Additionally, beautiful children’s books (Maurice Sendak anyone?) and philosophies are also available – but you’ll have to come look for yourself! Embrace the rain and enjoy a book. 360.898.2481

(I already said I am not brave enough to investigate ghosts properly, so if you’d like to listen/ view the data please visit https:// olympicpeninsulaparanormalsociety.com/McReavy_house_ April_2010.html).

If you want a more guided experience of the supernatural, the historic mill town of Port Gamble located at the mouth of the Hood Canal

As you can see, Hood Canal has its share of spooky, hair-raising ventures to explore in the time of the year when the “veil is the thinnest” as the seasons change. Whether you just want a pumpkin latte or wish to try interacting with the supernatural enjoy the season the Pacific Northwest way, you can choose with your own comfort level.

You're never too old – or young for that matter– for an autumn excursion to a pumpkin patch. Mason County's Hunter Farm in Union is one of our favorite. It's not the largest, nor the driest for that matter, but as far as experience, value, and good "clean" fun – this seventh generation farm is the perfect place to while away an October afternoon.