Skip to main content

Blueberry Arts Festival

The Annual Blueberry Arts Festival presented by the Ketchikan Area Arts and Humanities Council began in 1975 and has been growing ever since. The Blueberry Arts Festival is always the first weekend of August, with over 8,000 community members and summer visitors attending. A few of the community’s favorite activities of the 3-day Festival include the Pet and Doll Parade, the Slug Weigh in and Race, live music, the Blueberry Arts Festival Art Exhibit, the Best Blueberry Dish Contest, Fun Runs, the Blueberry Pie-Eating contest, the Great Blueberry Ball Roll, PLUS over 130 artist and vendor booths. The Blueberry Arts Festival wraps up Sunday with the Handmade Human Powered Blueberry Boat Race which includes a grueling almost 100 foot race course filled with tide changes, rapids, bananas, eye patches, sinking boats, drama, and fun!!! The final activities of the weekend are the Annual Richard Brautigan, Dick Whitaker, & Lillian Ference Memorial Trout Fishing in America Poetry Slam and the Gigglefeet Dance Festival! Come to down town Ketchikan and see art, make art, admire art, be inspired by art, maybe give an artist a thank you hug, eat good food, and appreciate the community of Ketchikan for all its quirky gloriousness.

49th Annual Blueberry Arts Festival Schedule!!!

Friday, August 2nd, 2024

2pm - Blueberry Pet and Doll Parade! - sponsored by Community Connection Early Learning Program!
This, the cutest parade in the universe, starts at the intersection of Main and Grant streets! No pre-registration needed - just bring your kids, their dolls, and your pets and have fun! The parade ends at the downtown Ketchikan Fire Station with snacks provided by the Fire Station and fun surprises by Community Connections Early Learning Program!

3pm - Submission DUE! - Best Blueberry Dish Contest
Submissions for the Best Blueberry Dish Contest are due at the Main Street Gallery, 330 Main Street, between noon and 3pm to be entered in the contest! Doors are locked at 3pm! The winner of the contest will have their recipe featured at the New York Cafe for the month of August!

5pm to 7pm - Opening of the Blueberry Arts Festival Judged Art Exhibit
Join us for the opening of the Blueberry Arts Festival Judged Art Exhibit! This is an Open Call for all artists, any age, in all mediums. Prizes will be awarded for Adult 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place, Young adult (16 -23 yrs) and Youth (0-15 yrs) 1st Prize, and People's Choice!

Saturday, August 3rd, 2024

9am - Blueberry Fun Run - 1 mile children's run
9:30am - Blueberry Fun Run - 10K
9:45am  Blueberry Fun Run - 5K
Fun Runs will start at Grant and Main streets and are a program of the Ketchikan Running Club

9:30am - Big Slug Weigh In
Bring those giant slugs you have been training to the intersection of Mission and Main streets for their weigh in! Prizes to be awarded!

10am to 5pm - Blueberry Booths Open!
Over 140 artist, food and informational booths will be open downtown from 10am to 5pm! ADA parking will be available in Whale Park, and ADA drop off and pick is also available at Mission and Bawden. Wheelchair and walker loaners will be available at the booth in the Episcopal Church. Booths will be open on Dock Street from Bawden to Main Street, on Mission Street From Bawden to Front Street and on Main street from Pioneer Alley to Mission!!!

10am to 5pm - The Main Street Gallery is Open!
While enjoying the Blueberry Arts Festival don't forget to visit the Main Street Gallery, 330 Main Street, to see the Blueberry Arts Festival Art Exhibit! This is an Open Call exhibit for all artists, any age, in all mediums. Place your vote for People Choice Award!

10:30am - SLUG RACES!!!
This is it! The moment your slug has been waiting for!!! Bring those slugs to the intersection of Mission and Main streets for their defining event. The grueling, two-heat event finds the fastest slug in the land! Prizes to be awarded!

11:30am - Pie Eating Contest for all ages
Yep! Pie eating - that's BLUEBERRY Pie eating - for all ages at the intersection of Mission and Main streets! We start heats at 11:30 with ages "can reach the table" to 8yrs - 9 to 12yrs - 13 to 18 yrs - and adult! Prizes awarded!

12pm to 5pm - Live Acoustic Music throughout the Festival - Sponsored by KPU Telecommunications

3pm - Great Blueberry Ball Roll
Presented by the Ketchikan Youth Court - and one of their major fundraisers - the Great Blueberry Ball Roll will begin at Pioneer Alley and Main Street promptly at 3pm.

5pm - Blueberry Arts Festival Booths Close
Blueberry Arts Festival booths close at 5pm, go home, get some rest, and get ready for Sunday's line up of fun events!

Sunday, August 4th, 2024

1pm to 1:45pm - Check in for the Annual Handmade Human Powered Blueberry Boat Race
Make your way (and bring your handmade boat) to the Bayside Float in Thomas Basin to register. You must have a life jacket and whistle on all contestants in your vessel to compete! Prizes are awarded for Fastest Youth vessel, Fastest Adult Vessel, Most Artistic, and yes folks, my favorite category, Voted Most Likely to Sink!!!

2pm - 7th Annual Handmade Human Powered Blueberry Boat Race - Sponsored by KPU Telecommunications
You can watch this race from Stedman Street, from other Floats in Thomas Basin, and from the Federal Building parking lot. Cheer on the contestants as they jockey for position, wobble into each other, meander off course, lose parts of their vessel, and eventually make it to finish line!!!

3:30pm - The Richard Brautigan, Dick Whittaker, and Lillian Ference Memorial Trout Fishing in America Poetry Slam and Flounder Free Form Poetry Contest! Sponsored by the New York Cafe, Soho Coho, Chinook and Company, and Parnassus Books!
Join us at the New York Cafe for this amazing Poetry Slam. We have so many poets in Ketchikan, and they only get a few chances to share their work in a large setting and this event is one of them!

7pm - Doors Open for the Gigglefeet Dance Festival
The Gigglefeet Dance Festival is a collaborative effort by First City Players, the Ketchikan Area Arts and Humanities Council, and the Ketchikan Theatre Ballet to showcase choreographers and dancers in our community. The performance will take place at the Kayhi Auditorium, tickets available soon at ketchikanarts.org!!!

The Blueberry Arts Festival is an enormous undertaking! If you are interested in volunteering - we would love your help! Please call us at 907-225-2211 to sign up!

The Positive Impact of the Arts Sector in Ketchikan

  • Impact of the Arts Sector in Ketchikan

    5,700,000 million annually

  • Direct employment by Arts Sector in Ketchikan

    73

  • Volunteer Hours for KAAHC in 2023

    1,920

© 2024 Ketchikan Area Arts and Humanities Council
Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

  1. What Information Do We Collect? When you visit our website you may provide us with two types of information: personal information you knowingly choose to disclose that is collected on an individual basis and website use information collected on an aggregate basis as you and others browse our website.
  2. Personal Information You Choose to Provide We may request that you voluntarily supply us with personal information, including your email address, postal address, home or work telephone number and other personal information for such purposes as correspondence, placing an order, requesting an estimate, or participating in online surveys. If you choose to correspond with us through email, we may retain the content of your email messages together with your email address and our responses. We provide the same protections for these electronic communications that we employ in the maintenance of information received by mail and telephone.
  3. Website Use Information Similar to other websites, our site may utilize a standard technology called "cookies" (see explanation below, "What Are Cookies?") and web server logs to collect information about how our website is used. Information gathered through cookies and server logs may include the date and time of visits, the pages viewed, time spent at our website, and the sites visited just before and just after ours. This information is collected on an aggregate basis. None of this information is associated with you as an individual.
  4. How Do We Use the Information That You Provide to Us? Broadly speaking, we use personal information for purposes of administering our business activities, providing service and support and making available other products and services to our customers and prospective customers. Occasionally, we may also use the information we collect to notify you about important changes to our website, new services and special offers we think you will find valuable. The lists used to send you product and service offers are developed and managed under our traditional standards designed to safeguard the security and privacy of all personal information provided by our users. You may at any time to notify us of your desire not to receive these offers.
  5. What Are Cookies? Cookies are a feature of web browser software that allows web servers to recognize the computer used to access a website. Cookies are small pieces of data that are stored by a user's web browser on the user's hard drive. Cookies can remember what information a user accesses on one web page to simplify subsequent interactions with that website by the same user or to use the information to streamline the user's transactions on related web pages. This makes it easier for a user to move from web page to web page and to complete commercial transactions over the Internet. Cookies should make your online experience easier and more personalized.
  6. How Do We Use Information Collected From Cookies? We use website browser software tools such as cookies and web server logs to gather information about our website users' browsing activities, in order to constantly improve our website and better serve our users. This information assists us to design and arrange our web pages in the most user-friendly manner and to continually improve our website to better meet the needs of our users and prospective users. Cookies help us collect important business and technical statistics. The information in the cookies lets us trace the paths followed by users to our website as they move from one page to another. Web server logs allow us to count how many people visit our website and evaluate our website's visitor capacity. We do not use these technologies to capture your individual email address or any personally identifying information about you.
  7. Notice of New Services and Changes Occasionally, we may use the information we collect to notify you about important changes to our website, new services and special offers we think you will find valuable. As a user of our website, you will be given the opportunity to notify us of your desire not to receive these offers by clicking on a response box when you receive such an offer or by sending us an email request.
  8. How Do We Secure Information Transmissions? When you send confidential personal information to us on our website, a secure server software which we have licensed encrypts all information you input before it is sent to us. The information is scrambled en route and decoded once it reaches our website. Other email that you may send to us may not be secure unless we advise you that security measures will be in place prior to your transmitting the information. For that reason, we ask that you do not send confidential information such as Social Security, credit card, or account numbers to us through an unsecured email.
  9. How Do We Protect Your Information? Information Security -- We utilize encryption/security software to safeguard the confidentiality of personal information we collect from unauthorized access or disclosure and accidental loss, alteration or destruction. Evaluation of Information Protection Practices -- Periodically, our operations and business practices are reviewed for compliance with organization policies and procedures governing the security, confidentiality and quality of our information. Employee Access, Training and Expectations -- Our organization values, ethical standards, policies and practices are committed to the protection of user information. In general, our business practices limit employee access to confidential information, and limit the use and disclosure of such information to authorized persons, processes and transactions.
  10. How Can You Access and Correct Your Information? You may request access to all your personally identifiable information that we collect online and maintain in our database by emailing us using the contact form provided to you within the site structure of our website.
  11. Do We Disclose Information to Outside Parties? We may provide aggregate information about our customers, sales, website traffic patterns and related website information to our affiliates or reputable third parties, but this information will not include personally identifying data, except as otherwise provided in this privacy policy.
  12. What About Legally Compelled Disclosure of Information? We may disclose information when legally compelled to do so, in other words, when we, in good faith, believe that the law requires it or for the protection of our legal rights.
  13. Permission to Use of Materials The right to download and store or output the materials in our website is granted for the user's personal use only, and materials may not be reproduced in any edited form. Any other reproduction, transmission, performance, display or editing of these materials by any means mechanical or electronic without our express written permission is strictly prohibited. Users wishing to obtain permission to reprint or reproduce any materials appearing on this site may contact us directly.
Terms & Conditions

Terms & Conditions

Donation Refund Policy

We are grateful for your donation and support of our organization. If you have made an error in making your donation or change your mind about contributing to our organization please contact us. Refunds are returned using the original method of payment. If you made your donation by credit card, your refund will be credited to that same credit card.

Automated Recurring Donation Cancellation

Ongoing support is important to enabling projects to continue their work, so we encourage donors to continue to contribute to projects over time. But if you must cancel your recurring donation, please notify us.

Powered by Firespring