Tidewater Boil draws sold-out crowd to La Conner Marina

Southern hospitality La Conner-style was on the menu at the La Conner Marina Friday night.

A sold-out crowd enjoyed favorite dishes from farm and sea during the inaugural Skagit Tidewater Boil fundraiser for Genuine Skagit Valley, the organization established in 2013 to recognize the area's unique agricultural heritage.

Literally taking a page from the Gulf Coast's famed southern crab boils, with prawns, spicy sausage, sweet corn, red potatoes and Dungeness crab dumped onto the two dozen tables covered by back issues of the Weekly News, the La Conner event honored more than a century of Skagit Delta farming and fishing.

Also highlighted during the three-hour festivities were the region's brewers, a precursor to the Skagit Farm to Pint Beer Festival under the same tent Saturday, presented by The Port of Skagit.

Planning a tidewater boil in this northern clime has long been on GSV Director Blake Vanfield's to-do list.

"This is something I've always wanted to do," she said. "It's a great opportunity to celebrate the foods of the Skagit Valley in a relaxed setting, eating with your hands, while sitting next to and visiting with friends and family."

It proved to be a recipe for success.

Vanfield said over 160 tickets were sold and another two dozen people were turned away from the venue next to the Marina's offices because the tent had no room for additional diners.

Skagit County Assessor Danny Hagen was among the lucky ticketholders.

"It's an incredible event," Hagen said midway through the meal. "It shows incredible support for a great organization."

Food preparation involved what Vanfield called "an all-day adventure," with six boiling pots in use simultaneously.

"It probably took eight to 10 hours," she said.

Such a festive gathering wasn't possible during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"COVID threw us a curveball," Vanfield said. "We couldn't have any community events for a couple years."

GSV had all the bases covered Friday. The Artful Dodgers, popular for their southern twang and dance tunes, entertained prior to and after the dinner bell rang.

Of course, organizers couldn't dial up a warm southern night here in late September. Diners wore layers for comfort on a cool night further chilled by a breeze out of the north.

"I can't tell you how impressed I am with our guests coming out on a chilly evening," Vanfield said. "Our Pacific Northwest folks are real hardy."

Vanfield knows of what she speaks, having grown up in rural Oregon. Her family raised both dairy and beef cattle, allowing her to easily relate to Skagit Valley's well-established farm community.

The Skagit area, according to GSV accounts, saw its first commercial crop of cultivated potatoes planted on March Point, seven miles north of La Conner, a decade before the outbreak of the Civil War.

Oats from the La Conner flats and elsewhere in Skagit Valley were first sent to Seattle markets in the 1870s. During World War I, farmers here provided oats to Europe when its farm fields were torn asunder by armies still relying on horses to move troops and equipment.

Today, the Skagit Valley continues to supply a multitude of crops globally that are grown on some of the most fertile soil in the world.

Vanfield likewise admires the local fishing industry, an integral part of the tidewater boil format.

"And when you want to honor farming and fishing," she stressed, "there's no better location than La Conner. I hope we can do this every year in La Conner."