Festival Brings a Little Light to the Dark Winter

Kayla Desroches/KMXT

This coming Saturday, locals can wander into the Harbor Convention Center, grab a mug of hot apple cider and stand by the window with a plate full of cookies. Out that window there will be rows of vessels covered in Christmas lights.

Or that’s the hope according to Toby Sullivan, executive director of the Kodiak Maritime Museum. This year’s Harbor Lights Festival will continue come hell or high water – or ferocious winds – but weather can affect participation.

Organizers ask vessel owners at the St. Paul and St. Herman harbors to bedeck their boats with all kinds of decoration, but Sullivan says last year’s weather got in the way of some of the efforts.

“It blew probably 40 or 50 during the day, it was sideways rain and snow from the northeast, and it was really rotten outside, and we had about three or four or six inches of slush everywhere by about 5 o’clock. So, the number of people who decorated their boats was down a little bit from the year before because a lot of people put their lights up on that Saturday of the event because they have to work or whatever, and it was so lousy out that a lot of people didn’t get their lights up.”

Nevertheless, some vessel owners still decorated their boats and the event still took place, as it will again this year.

Sullivan says a number of musical groups will perform, including the Isle Bells and the St. Innocent’s Academy Choir. The food and entertainment will be available from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Harbor Convention Center on Saturday.