“Last year, we went Bearfest Lite,” said Sylvia Ettefagh, organizer of Wrangell’s annual summer festival. “It is back to Bearfest Full,” she said of this year’s event, which is less three weeks away.
Bearfest 2021 opens July 28 and runs through Aug. 1, with almost two dozen activities already listed on the website last week. “We’ll be adding more,” Ettefagh said.
With the loosening of COVID-19 restrictions, organizers hope to return to the 300 or so participants who joined in, signed up, listened, watched, learned, danced, ate and golfed in a normal year.
Several of the in-person events were dropped last year or moved to Zoom in response to the pandemic’s health-safety restrictions, with this year returning to bringing people together to learn, share ideas and enjoy the community, she said.
Ettefagh, who operates Alaska Vistas tours, started Bearfest in 2010, aiming to make help Wrangell a top destination for bear enthusiasts everywhere. “Our goal is to use one of our best resources — the Anan bear observatory — to put Wrangell on the map and turn it into ‘Bear U.S.A.’,” she said in a Sentinel interview on the festival’s fifth anniversary.
“It’s showcasing Wrangell,” she said last week. In addition, it’s also about bringing new ideas to town. “That’s one of the main goals of Bearfest.”
Besides educating and entertaining the public, the five-day festival is also a fundraiser. “When we see someplace in the community that has a need that isn’t being met,” that’s where Bearfest will put its money, Ettefagh said. This year, it helped with the borough’s efforts to add plants and spruce up the green spaces along downtown streets. In a past year, it purchased an upright bass for the high school.
Events this year include an art workshop, bear symposiums, photography workshops, a golf tournament, book reading for children, live music, workshops by local musicians, a community market, children’s games, fundraising raffle, and a 5K, half marathon and full marathon.
And lots of food over the days.
A pasta feed is planned for the evening before the Aug. 1 runs. A sushi class is planned for July 31. And a gourmet dinner by Carrie Mashaney, executive chef at Mamnoon, in Seattle, is on the table for July 30. Mashaney is a former contestant on the TV show “Top Chef.” Locally made goods, seafoods, fresh fruit and more will be auctioned off at the dinner.
Dinner tickets, at $75 each, are limited to 80 people, and are available at Alaska Vistas or by calling 874-3006.
The first Bearfest featured the usual for an Alaska event — a salmon bake. But since then, the festival has brought in award-winning chefs from Seattle on three different occasions. “I am upping the game,” Ettefagh said of this year’s dinner.
More information is available online at http://www.alaskabearfest.org.
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