COVID-19 knocks out Pioneer Picnic

A year without the Pioneer Picnic in La Conner is rarer than the return of Halley’s Comet. This is one of those years.

For the first time in more than a century – 116 years, in fact – there will be no Pioneer Picnic here on the first Thursday in August.

COVID-19 is the culprit.

“Our board voted to put the picnic on hiatus until next year,” Skagit County Pioneer Association President John Kamb, Jr., a Mount Vernon attorney, told the Weekly News on Friday.

“Our thought,” Kamb said, “was that with so many of the people who attend being more vulnerable to the coronavirus that we just couldn’t hold a picnic this year.”

Kamb also said the pioneer association is committed to following state mandates and Centers for Disease Control guidelines put in place in response to COVID-19.

“Our board is very concerned by the spread of the virus,” Kamb said, “and doesn’t want to go against standards that promote public health and safety.”

Kamb said he and other association officers will retain their offices in anticipation of planning a 2021 Pioneer Picnic.

The Good family, selected as the 2020 Pioneer Association Family of the Year, will be honored next year, he said.

“We will also be honoring the Billikens Club (of La Conner) Territorial Daughters of Washington, and other groups,” Kamb said.

“It will be the same as this year would have been,” he added. “No one is going anywhere. We’ve just put everything on hold.”

The 2020 edition of Skagit River Journal, which is traditionally available for purchase at the Pioneer Picnic, will instead be marketed via the Skagit County Historical Museum’s publications website, according to Past Pioneer Association President Dan Royal.

Kamb remains confident about the future of the Pioneer Picnic, one of Skagit County’s most historically significant annual events.

“We’re definitely coming back next year, bigger and stronger,” he said.