May 10, 2025
March 9 - Billy Frank Jr. Day
Please join the Western Washington treaty tribes in remembering this legendary man and his lifelong battle for salmon and treaty fishing rights. In 2021, the Washington legislature passed a bill to commemorate Billy Frank Jr. with a statue in the U.S. Capitol. Click HERE for more information on the statue.
​For more information and videos about Billy Frank Jr. and his life's work please click HERE.
May 3, 2025 @7:00pm - Story Slam Fundraiser at Beaver Tales Coffee, Coupeville Wharf
Penn Cove Water Festival Association is Proud to Present a Fun Fundraiser:
A Five-Minute Storytelling competition with a cash prize for the winner
​Got five minutes? Come and share an experience or lend an ear at our first Story-Slam.
What’s a Story-Slam?
A Story-Slam is more than a storytelling competition. It’s an invitation to share five minutes of your life in a room full of people who appreciate a well-told tale. Audience storytellers take to the stage with real life stories on the theme of the night. Winner to get a cash prize.
How does a Story-Slam work?
Story-Slam are like open mics for people who love stories. We provide a theme, and you get real by taking the stage to tell a 100% true, personal story. You’ve got 5 minutes to entertain the “most engaged audience in Coupeville.” No notes or props allowed.
The Topic Will Be: Community
Beaver Tales Coffee on the Coupeville Wharf
May 3rd, 2025, 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM. Registration starts 6:30 PM
$20.00 Entry Fee
Signup link: Story-Slam Fundraiser, May 3, 2025
As a prelude to the Penn Cove Water Festival on May 10, 2025, Lou LaBombard will tell stories around the campfire.
Lou is a retired tenured professor of Anthropology at Skagit Valley College, Whidbey Campus, where had taught for 5 years. He is a Seneca-Mohawk of the Iroquois Confederacy, a Viet Nam Vet and served as an airborne paramedic. Lou has lectured around the United States on subjects ranging from incorporation of Native American materials into the general teaching curriculum and the use of Native American storytelling and oral traditions, to various subjects relating to the archaeology and history of the West, Southwest and Pacific Northwest coast. He has also studied the techniques for retention of traditional cultures of select Native American groups compared with the Maori of New Zealand. His stories from Native American oral traditions will keep the entire family enthralled.
May 17-26 2025: Gathering of the Eagles
Summer 2025 begins with the 5th Annual Gathering of the Eagles. This 6-island week-long canoe journey celebrates our intergenerational cultural heritage with indigenous relatives visiting from around the world. For more information, click here.
May 22-23 2025: Vine Deloria Jr. Indigenous Studies Symposium
The 20th anniversary of the Vine Deloria Jr. Indigenous Studies Symposium marks two decades of commitment to Indigenous rights, culture, and education. This anniversary acknowledges the ongoing relevance of Deloria’s work and the foundational ideas presented at past symposia For more information, click here.
August 1-5 2025: Canoe Journey
Canoe Journey, also called the Tribal Canoe Journey or Tribal Journey, is the annual tradition of traveling on ancestral waterways by canoe. Canoe families leave their homelands, often staying at other Tribal locations, and arrive together at one location to share cultural traditions. This year is the Paddle to Elwha. See this Facebook page for more information
Russell Morton
We call him "The Beadman." He has brought his work to the Water Festival for many years, always there continuing his work and explain the project and the technique of beading.
In 2019 Russell donated his completed work to the Island County Museum where it is on permanent display in the Native People Exhibit.
We thank Russell for his generous gift.
Russell once posted that "the Four Seasons of Waters" constructed will have passed 8 years and continues to be more interesting.
It is an ultimate form of intense, slow art. Intense remains revenant in our modern world, but slow is gone with the horse and buggy for regular travel."
Suva
The Penn Cove Water Festival welcomes the Schooner Suva back at the Wharf for the May 10, 2025 Festival. Visit Schooner Suva for pricing and additional information.
For more information contact Jim at 360-320-4337 or info@schoonersuva.org.
Pacific Rim Institute
Lowland Prairie was managed and utilized by the Native Americans for thousands of years. Today, native prairie is Washington State's fastest disappearing ecosystem. Come and tour a remnant of this prairie at the Pacific Rim Institute. The prairie will be in full bloom and we can't wait to share it with you. Naturalists will take you off trail into the heart of the prairie and tell you about the natural history, the present state and the future plans for native lowland prairie here at the Pacific Rim Institute for Environmental Stewardship. Click here for Directions to Pacific Rim Institute.
The Island County Museum, located at the foot of the historic Coupeville Wharf, will be open (admission by donation) during the Water Festival. The museum interprets 120,000 years of Island County History: from an Ice Age tree trunk, Wooly Mammoth remains, to a section devoted to the original inhabitants,, to the first car on Whidbey Island.
In addition, the Museum will be showcasing another special exhibit: Fiber art in collaboration with Coupeville's Northwest Art School.
(Please note: Museum restrooms are closed during the festival.)