{"id":71913,"date":"2021-06-18T22:30:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-19T06:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/juneau-has-a-merry-time-at-outdoor-festival\/"},"modified":"2021-06-19T16:43:28","modified_gmt":"2021-06-20T00:43:28","slug":"juneau-has-a-merry-time-at-outdoor-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/juneau-has-a-merry-time-at-outdoor-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"Juneau has a merry time at outdoor festival"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t\t\t

A picturesque day, a full schedule of events and dozens of vendors drew thousands of people to downtown Juneau’s waterfront.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

The 11th Juneau Maritime Festival, a celebration of maritime history, culture and commerce hosted by Juneau Economic Development Council, was held Saturday. The festival, which took place on the deckover near the Downtown Public Library, is among the first large, in-person events to be held in the capital city since the pandemic.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

“It’s so nice,” said Marjorie John, during a short interview following 8-year-old Mason John’s victory in a pool noodle boat race. John said she remembered seeing a question posted to social media asking whether the event should be held in-person. “I’m so glad that they did.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

\"Mason<\/a>

Mason John, 8, huffs and puss his noodle boat toward the finish line at the 11th Juneau Maritime Festival. For his efforts, John was awarded pirate gold that could be exchanged for a prize. (Ben Hohenstatt \/ Juneau Empire)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

With new cases down and both temperatures and vaccination rates rising, the event drew a crowd.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

“Turnout to this point has been fantastic, said Brian Holst, executive director of JEDC.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

Holst said while it was tough to provide something more concrete than an estimate for attendance while the event was in progress said it appeared comparable to the 2018 edition of the event, which attracted over 5,000 people. The number of vendors present was certainly up from previous years. There were 56 vendors at the festival, and Holst said in past years, there have been about 40 vendors. <\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

“People are ready to come together as a community,” Holst said. “It’s been a wonderful day.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

\"More<\/a>

More vendors than ever were part of the 11th edition of the Juneau Maritime Festival held Saturday, according to Juneau Economic Development Council executive director Brian Holst. In total, there were 56 vendors at this year’s event. Holst said about 40 vendors had been a typical number at past iterations of the event that celebrates Juneau’s maritime culture. (Ben Hohenstatt \/ Juneau Empire)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

The day included live music, maritime-related contests, food, a water rescue demonstration by the U.S. Coast Guard and cultural celebrations among other activities.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

Nancy Barnes of the multi-cultural dance group Yèes Ku.oo Dancers said the Juneau Maritime Festival represented the first return to in-person performance for the dancers.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

\"The<\/a>

The Yèes Ku.oo Dancers perform near the beginning of the 11th Juneau Maritime Festival. The event, among the first large, in-person events to be held in the capital city since the pandemic marked a return to live performing for the multi-cultural dance group. (Ben Hohenstatt \/ Juneau Empire)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

“I thought I’d be nervous, but I wasn’t,” said Ralphenia Dybdahl, another member of the dance group.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

They said the return to performing and the sense of community that comes with it were welcome.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

“This group here is like a family really,” Barnes said. “Everybody is just dying to dance.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

See more photos from the festival below<\/strong> <\/ins><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

• Contact Ben Hohenstatt at (907)308-4895 or bhohenstatt@juneauempire.com. Follow him on Twitter at @BenHohenstatt<\/em><\/p>\n\t\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

11th Maritime Festival among first major in-person events in the city since the pandemic. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":474,"featured_media":71914,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":9,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-71913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/474"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71913"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=71913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}