Pumpkins have a solid standing in the world of food. Pies? Of course. Cupcakes? Sure. Creamed into soup? Delicious. Roasted in chunks, with cinnamon? You bet. Spiced lattes? Well, OK.
But the big orange gourds have a notable history in the transportation racket, too. Cinderella famously rode to the ball in a pumpkin transformed into a regal carriage, and then, at the stroke of midnight, into a pumpkin again.
And on Sunday on Tualatin’s Lake of the Commons, giant pumpkins were carrying passengers, too — not carriage-style, but as carved-out boats, a bit like bloated kayaks, being paddled by costumed characters splashing away in a series of watery races. It’s called the West Coast Giant Pumpkin Regatta, and it’s been going on annually since 2004, drawing avid audiences and racers from places both hither and yon.
But, you ask, are those pumpkins seaworthy? Lakeworthy, at least — and fortunately, none of the races came anywhere close to that dreaded midnight deadline, which meant no sudden transitions of horses-turned-into-mice skedaddling off (although a few people did get a trifle wet). And where did all these gargantuan gourds come from? Why, the Pacific Giant Vegetable Growers, of course. As they say: “We grow ’em big!”
It was a weekend of pumpkiny persuasion: craft beer, wood-fired pizza, giant pumpkin weigh-off on Saturday; 5K regatta run/walk and all those regatta races on Sunday. Photographer Joe Cantrell was bobbing in and out of Sunday’s lakeside crowd, capturing the action on the water and the sidelines, too. For a peek at the action, see his selection of photos below. Then, make your plans for next year.
— The Editors
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Left: Anticipating Halloween; no bones about it. Right: Backing the racers to beat the band.
I spent my first 21 years in Tahlequah, Cherokee County, Oklahoma, assuming that except for a few unfortunate spots, ‘everybody’ was part Cherokee, and son of the soil. Volunteered for Vietnam because that’s what we did. After two stints, hoping to gain insight, perhaps do something constructive, I spent the next 16 years as a photojournalist in Asia, living much like the lower income urban peasants and learning a lot. Moved back to the USA in 1986, tried photojournalism and found that the most important subjects were football and basketball, never mind humankind. In 1992, age 46, I became single dad of my 3-year-old daughter and spent the next two decades working regular jobs, at which I was not very good, to keep a roof over our heads, but we made it. She’s retail sales supervisor for Sony, Los Angeles. Wowee! The VA finally acknowledged that the war had affected me badly and gave me a disability pension. I regard that as a stipend for continuing to serve humanity as I can, to use my abilities to facilitate insight and awareness, so I shoot a lot of volunteer stuff for worthy institutions and do artistic/scientific work from our Cherokee perspective well into many nights. Come along!
