Get ready to party West Coast, Ukee Days is around the corner.
“Ukee Days is our local community festival that celebrates Ucluelet and provides a fun and entertaining event and a chance to see your neighbours in the middle of the summer,” explained Ucluelet’s Director of Parks and Recreation Abby Fortune. “It’s a wonderful time for everyone to come together, enjoy being in Ucluelet and have some fun.”
This year’s festival will run from July. 21-23, kicking off with a Friday night barbecue at the Village Green featuring live music, a Standup Paddleboard Race and a Gumboot Toss competition.
On July 22, the annual Ukee Days parade will party down Peninsula Road leading to the opening of the festival’s weekend fairgrounds at Seaplane Base field.
“It’s a whole weekend of family fun and entertainment and we’ve got so many things going on, you’ll be kept entertained the whole weekend,” Fortune said. “There’s going to be lots of activities and events and food and retail and entertainment. It’s a chance to meet and greet with your friends and new people and have a lot of fun.”
This will be the 23rd Ukee Days event for Fortune since she joined the Ucluelet Parks and Recreation Department and, she said, the local weekend festival has evolved with the community.
“There has been a lot of changes. We see a lot more people now and our music fest. portion of the event has certainly grown,” she said.
“Things change as the community changes, as we change, and as society changes.”
Some notable changes this year are the removal of the Canadian Logger Sports Championships as well as the Wife Carrying Contest. Fortune said the professional logger sports events will be replaced with fun amateur ones and she assured the annual Kids Logger Sports activities will be offered in full.
The popular NAIL, SAIL, BAIL boat race is returning, but has been moved to Sunday this year, and Fortune touted a circus show and Ukee’s Got Talent competition as two exciting new additions to this year’s festivities.
“We’ve got a great lineup for the music so we’re really excited about that,” she added.
She said eight bands are signed on to perform throughout the weekend—one on Friday, four on Saturday and three on Sunday—including the Tofino-Ucluelet Adult Choirs.
The festival will also see two key fundraisers with the proceeds from Saturday morning’s Ukee Days breakfast going to Cops for Cancer and the weekend’s beer garden sales earmarked for the local Army, Navy and Airforce Veterans Club.
Ucluelet mayor Dianne St. Jacques said she’s enjoyed her community’s longstanding Ukee Days tradition since moving to the West Coast roughly 40 years ago.
“It’s been a great event all the way through those years,” she said. “It’s a great spot to celebrate Ucluelet; to have fun and to celebrate where we are and who we are.
She cited Saturday morning’s parade as her favourite festivity.
“The parade is awesome. Everybody from little toddlers all the way to the seniors, participates,” she said. “It’s great to see people participating and having fun with it.”
Tofino mayor Josie Osborne said Ucluelet’s neighbours are excited to join the celebration.
“Nothing compares to Ukee Days as a way to see all your Ukee friends,” Osborne said. “Tofitians should absolutely partake. It’s a great way to get to know our neighbours better and get an insight into the pride Ucluetians have for their community.”
Anyone looking for more information about the festival is encouraged to check out a district-run event blog at UkeeDays.WordPress.com.
A full schedule of events can be found in a special Ukee Days pull-out feature in this week’s issue of the Westerly News on newsstands now.