Have some fun at Dirty Dan Days in Fairhaven - Vancouver Sun

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Have some fun at Dirty Dan Days in Fairhaven - Vancouver Sun Mar 20th 2012, 08:56 "Dirty Dan" Harris, a colourful, bigger-than-life entrepreneur who died more than 100 years ago, will come back to life again during this charming little Victorian village's annual Dirty Dan Days Festival on April 29. Dirty Dan, a one-time sea-man, gold prospector and rum-runner who founded Fairhaven in 1883 but hated taking baths, will be resurrected by a retired high school teacher named Jim Rich, who boasts a white beard just like Dirty Dan's and will be roaming the streets all day in a white shirt, a festive vest and a black bowler hat. Unlike his namesake, however, Rich hastens to note that he takes a shower every day. Fairhaven, which was one of four small towns that amalgamated to form Bellingham in 1903, has preserved at least 15 of its original century-old Victorian buildings on a picturesque hillside above the waters of Bellingham Bay about five kilometres south of downtown Bellingham. The all-day celebration will kick off at 10 a.m. with the International Dan Harris Challenge Rowing Race, which is expected to attract more than 100 kayakers including a number of hardy competitors from B.C. The race is a homage to one of Dirty Dan's early money-making ventures - rowing a boat filled with fresh vegetables from Fairhaven to Victoria and then returning with a load of Hudson Bay blankets and contraband whiskey. The race begins and ends at Boulevard Park which is a long, narrow band of green at the end of an elevated boardwalk along the Fairhaven waterfront. You can watch the race from an old dock at the end of Taylor Street which leads out to the boardwalk or you can follow the boardwalk right into Boulevard Park. One of the festival's most popular events - billed as the world's only piano race - will take place at high noon when several four-person teams will compete to see who can roll a piano uphill on Harris Avenue in the fastest time from 9th Street to 10th Street. Once again the race is a homage to Dirty Dan who famously hauled a piano out of Fairhaven's biggest hotel one night and sent it careening down the same hill into the bay because the hotel owner refused to pay him for it. Last year's winner was a team from Hagen's Fairhaven Market which, incidentally, is a great place to get a fresh-made sandwich or cup of soup for a quick lunch. (I can personally recommend the egg salad.) All other festival events will be held at the Village Green, which is a lovely communal patch of grass about the size of a basketball court between 10th and 11th streets directly in back of the Colophon Cafe and Village Books. It is surrounded by benches and a glass-covered canopy around the periphery in case of (heaven forbid) rain. During the summer, out-door movies are shown against the white wall of a historic old building at one end of the Green. But during the festival, a slightly elevated stage in front of the wall is where three local bands will take turns playing music all day long. Among the other events of the day will be a chowder cook-off, in which 18 local restaurants will offer samples of their best chowder from 2 to 4.30 p.m. Spectators can buy tickets for a taste of all the entries and a chance to vote for the winner. Festival organizer Stephanie Johnson said last year's champ was the Skylark Cafe. There will also be a salmon-tossing contest for adults at 10.45 a.m. along with a trout-tossing competition for kids. A cup-cake eating contest open to both young and old will be held at 1.45 p.m. and a Dirty Dan look-a-like contest will commence at 3.15 p.m. There will also be a prize for the best Gay Nineties dress which usually goes to one of the Ladies of the Evening - a group of Fairhaven businesswomen who prowl the streets in colourful costumes of silk and satin in memory of the town's 40 bordellos which flourished during the 1890s. "It was one of the few businesses open to women back then," said Diane Phillips, who operates an old-fashioned barber shop on Harris Avenue, and is one of the civic-minded ladies who join the festival every year. "Each of us takes the name of one of the famous madams and this year, I'm Dora Reno, who had the biggest bordello of all with 21 cribs," she said with a proud proprietary smile. Free walking tour maps of Fairhaven will be available at the Village Green for visitors who would like to check out some of the grand old buildings and legendary stories from a booming time when the young com-munity thought it had a shot at becoming the terminus of the Great Northern Railroad. When that honour eventually went to Seattle, Fairhaven was left with a lot of empty dreams and even emptier buildings - many of which have fortunately been lovingly preserved just as they were more than 100 years ago. My favourite is a magnificent four-storey gem called Sycamore Square at the corner of 12th Street and Harris Avenue. Inside the huge red-brick building is an atrium that stretches up all four floors to an octopus-like chandelier which looks down on a lovely stone fountain in the centre of the ground floor. Atop the fountain is a charming little girl staring into a bubbling bird bath with half a dozen tiny birds perched in front of her. Graceful dark wood railings line all of the upper floors which house a couple of dozen offices and two cafes. The walls are all decorated with wonderful old photographs of various shops and stores around town in 1905 with nattily dressed men standing ramrod straight near the front doors. In one corner of the building is a marvellous old-fashioned smoke shop filled with pipes, cigars and more than 40 different kinds of pipe tobacco. Although a few new buildings have been added to Fairhaven's downtown core through the years, they have all been constructed with the same kind of bricks and in a similar style, so that often the only way you can tell the new from the old is to check out the date at the top of the building. One of the best examples is the Knights of Pythias building that was erected near the corner of 11th Street and Harris Avenue in 1891. It houses the popular Colophon Cafe which has always had an odd love affair with Holstein cows as evidenced by a sign outside the front door that proclaims: "You're udderly welcome." Village Books, which used to occupy the same building as the café, decided to expand a few years ago and constructed a new three-storey building right next door. Although it looks almost like a carbon copy of the Pythias building, a signature stone at the top shows that it was built in 2004. Village Books is a must-see for any book lover with thou-sands upon thousands of volumes on three floors including a shelf full of books about Dirty Dan, Fairhaven and Bellingham, which clerk Joan Terselich will be only too happy to point out. As a long-time observer of Dirty Dan Days, Terselich summed it all up by saying: "This town loves to party!" In an ironic twist of fate, Fairhaven has finally seen its old dream of a regional transportation centre come true with a gorgeous ferry terminal where boats arrive daily from Alaska alongside a railroad station servicing Amtrak trains between Seattle and Vancouver and a Greyhound bus station as well - all clustered together at the foot of Harris Avenue. In yet another serendipitous twist, dozens of charter boats from throughout the Bellingham area are planning to gather at the ferry terminal on April 28 and 29 as part of a different annual event called Bellingham Bay Rendezvous - which means that visitors to Dirty Dan Days will be able to enjoy an extra treat by taking free public tours of historic wooden schooners from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on April 29. Many of the schooners will also unfurl their billowing sails for a series of spectacular races in the afternoon. Dirty Dan would have loved it all. IF YOU GO Getting There: Take Highway 99 to the Peace Arch border crossing and Interstate 5 south from Blaine, Wash., to Exit 250, and follow the Old Fairhaven Parkway into downtown Fairhaven where signs will point the way to a free parking lot at the corner of 11th and Mill streets. It's an 85-kilometre drive from Vancouver and takes just about that many minutes - not counting any wait time at the border. Accommodations: There are two elegant boutique hotels in Fairhaven - the Fairhaven Village Inn and the Chrysalis Inn - both on 10th Street. There are also at least 15 other hotels or motels in Bellingham as well as half a dozen B&Bs. More Information: For free maps and brochures, visit or write to: Bellingham Whatcom County Tourism, 904 Potter St., Bellingham, WA 98229. Phone: 1-899-487-2032 (toll-free) or 360-671-3990. Websites: www.bellingham.org and www.fairhaven.com © Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

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