Cranberry Museum\u00a0<\/a>in Long Beach will host its annual Cranberry Harvest Festival Oct. 10-11, giving visitors a front-row look at a crop that has been part of the peninsula for more than 140 years.<\/p>\nThe free festival includes live harvesting at the museum’s cranberry bogs from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. The museum and gift shop will remain open until 5 p.m. The museum is operated by the nonprofit Pacific Coast Cranberry Research Foundation and sits on an active cranberry research station.<\/p>\n
“Pacific Coast Cranberry Research Foundation owns this property, which is made up of cranberry growers, and this is a research station,” museum manager Paula Saunders Reagor said.<\/p>\n
Research conducted through Washington State University focuses on issues facing cranberry growers, including pests and weeds. Commercial cranberry growing in Long Beach dates back to the 19th century.<\/p>\n
“1883 was the very first harvest on a commercial cranberry bog, and Long Beach was the site of the very first commercial bog started in 1880,” Reagor said.<\/p>\n
According to Reagor, it began after a visitor from Cape Cod noticed native cranberries growing in the area’s sandy soil. He suggested that his relative buy land and later sent cranberry vines west.<\/p>\n
Today, visitors can explore that history through a self-guided tour of the museum. Exhibits include photographs, historic cranberry sorters and equipment \u2014 some of it handmade by growers \u2014 showing how harvesting evolved from picking berries by hand to using machinery.<\/p>\n
Pat Tapley, visiting from Grand Coulee, has been coming to Long Beach for decades.<\/p>\n
“We’ve been coming down here for 17 years together as a couple, but I’ve been coming down here for over 40 years,” Tapley said.<\/p>\n
One of the biggest misconceptions about cranberries comes from a familiar image: growers standing in flooded bogs surrounded by floating red berries. The cranberries aren’t actually grown in the water.<\/p>\n
“People see that commercial and think cranberries grow in the water, and that is the No. 1 question we get here,” Reagor said.<\/p>\n
Instead, the fields are flooded as part of the wet harvesting process. \u00a0A machine sometimes called an “egg beater” moves through the plants and knocks ripe cranberries from their vines. The berries then rise to the surface because cranberries contain four hollow air chambers that allow them to float. Workers enter the flooded bog with large booms and corral the floating berries toward one side. A conveyor then lifts them from the water and loads them into large totes on flatbed trucks.<\/p>\n
Each tote can hold roughly 1,000 pounds of cranberries. “It’s a unique process,” Reagor said. “I don’t know any other crop that uses it.”<\/p>\n
Festival visitors will have a chance to watch that process for themselves. The museum experience doesn’t end at the bog. Its gift shop carries an assortment of cranberry products, including jams, candy, soap and even cranberry beef sticks. One of its most popular offerings is made on site.<\/p>\n
“Our homemade cranberry ice cream is a big hit,” Reagor said. “It’s old-fashioned in a little Dixie cup with a wooden spoon, and we do make it here homemade.”<\/p>\n
For Reagor, however, one of the best parts of working at the museum is introducing visitors from around the world to the history of cranberries and the Long Beach Peninsula.<\/p>\n
“We’re just surrounded by nature and beauty here,” she said.<\/p>\n
And after more than 140 years, cranberry growers have apparently developed a sense of humor about their crop, too.<\/p>\n
“What’s the difference between pirates and cranberry growers?” Reagor asked. “Pirates bury their treasures. Cranberry growers treasure their berries.”<\/p>\n
The Cranberry Harvest Festival is Oct. 10-11 at the Cranberry Museum in Long Beach, Washington. The event is free and open to the public, with harvesting scheduled from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and the museum and gift shop open until 5 p.m.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Travelers should be aware of the Astoria-Megler Bridge closure on Sunday, October 11 from 8:30 to 11 a.m. for the Great Columbia Crossing 10K run and walk, an annual event that gives participants a rare opportunity to cross the bridge on foot. A portion of Washington State Route 401 near the starting area will also be closed during the event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Long Beach’s Cranberry Museum shares 140 years of local history as growers prepare for the annual Cranberry Harvest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482816,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-482815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}