Paul Bunyan Days to take over Fort Bragg for Labor Day weekend

FORT BRAGG, CA., 8/27/24 –– In 1967, a train car carrying members of the San Francisco Bay Area press corps got a free trip to Fort Bragg so they could cover Paul Bunyan Days. The then-renowned “Super Skunk Special” passenger train entered the redwood forest between Willits and Ukiah, and the food and drinks were flowing.

Suddenly, a posse of horseback riders waylaid the train, firing into the air and hollering “robbery” as they made their way through the cars. The dramatic holdup by Chamber of Commerce desperados was outreach by the Paul Bunyan Association.

While the world has changed, the message from the Paul Bunyan Association remains the same — bring the family and escape it all for a three-day weekend back in time to celebrate and even meet a fictional hero. “Logging was what built this town at the beginning, not just this town, San Francisco, and more,” said current Paul Bunyan Association president Heather Webster. “And we will all live in and put up houses for the foreseeable future. So let’s celebrate and enjoy our heritage. And then talk about what’s happening now. How can we do this sustainably?”

The original Paul Bunyan festival, which began in 1939, grew out of serious competitive logging shows in Fort Bragg that drew competitors from all over the country but lacked spectators. Adding big Paul, Babe the Blue Ox, and other folk legend fun, the flurry of family events has turned out to be a successful formula for 85 years, with a handful of years skipped.

Old-timers recall when the event demanded acquiescence to its theme at least from anyone recognized as a local. If men didn’t wear beards and top hats and women were seen outside old-fashioned dresses, they risked harassment by the Kangaroo Kort. In modern times, the logging show is accompanied by a  “Forestland Expo” where people can learn how scientific logging is correcting past mistakes to seek a sustainable forestry future.

Reading the old news stories reveals how the entire region north of San Francisco marketed itself collectively as the Redwood Empire, offering weekend vacations, something like a jolly dude ranch in some places or mythology fun for kids like Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox in Fort Bragg. When Frontier Days started in the early 1950s in Willits, it quickly joined Paul Bunyan Days, the Skunk Train, and many farming festivals in Sonoma County in regularly promoting fun for city slickers. At that time, what is now Brooktrails was an actual dude ranch. The region competed with the Napa Valley’s farming and wine fun for the same tourists. Old news accounts report the Calistoga Skydiving team would be parachuting in at Virgin Creek in Fort Bragg as part of Paul Bunyan Days. In later years, Sonoma and Mendocino counties ended cooperative efforts toward country fun as the emphasis of tourism turned to art, wine, and food.

While the outreach of 2024 is largely limited to internet efforts and postering the coast, Fort Bragg’s biggest annual event again offers a nostalgic escape to the days when Paul Bunyan used redwood trees as toothpicks, although the parade theme this year is the 1980s. Webster says to expect boom boxes, the beloved imitation neon so popular in that era and a few Michael Jackson and Jon Bon Jovi imitators.  What about an appearance by Marty McFly and the Professor?

“We can’t promise anything,” Webster said. “This theme has been a real hit and has engaged a lot of people. A lot of local folks are digging in their closets for those fashions from the 1980s. This is going to be a lot of fun.”

Ironically, the 1980s theme might be an excellent way for Paul Bunyan Days to reach the new generation. Roller skating, popular in the ‘80s, has come roaring back in the 2020s, and Paul Bunyan Days includes big Friday and Saturday skate nights in the old gym inside Fort Bragg City Hall. The local Ducks Unlimited chapter is doing a Bingo Night on Friday night. Locals have been yearning for bingo since the Lions Club ended its regular bingo night a few years ago. As fun as the bingo might be for residents, its location might be even more so. History buff Stathi Papas, general manager of the Skunk Train, purchased what was then Eagles Hall as his home. His family opens the grand old hall for public events, where people can see its massive redwood timbers and madrone floors slowly being restored. The hall, then known as Comrades Hall, was involved in the first Paul Bunyan Days in 1939.

While the festival celebrates the industry that built the town, it has always done so through a time machine back to a mythical view of the 1880s, with events such as the Old Fashioned Dress Review to be held Saturday at 2 p.m. Local women bring out appropriate dresses, hats, and fashion finery. An article from the Fort Bragg Advocate-News of the 1950s said women had to pass up grandma’s attic and search for Paul Bunyan Days fashions with great grandma instead. This year, Joseph Sverko, longtime organizer of the Old Fashioned Dress Review, says people might see both 1980s and 1890s fashions. “A lot of people are into the ‘80s theme,” he said.

The Belle of the Redwoods contest, in which young women have competed for the top prize since the beginning, returns with six contestants this year. The contest was a fashion and presentation competition, with women going all over town selling raffle tickets and showing off their vintage fashions. This year, the Belle of the Redwoods features two glamorous senior competitors, Nancy Kann and 90-year-old Yuki Holland, a beloved community member in Fort Bragg for more than half a century. She was a longtime cook for the volunteers and staff at the Fort Bragg Food Bank, making donated items into a meal volunteers praised. She and Kann are making the pitch for the Belle to raise money for the Fort Bragg Food Bank..

Another new look will be a remodeled Model Train exhibit. The model train exhibit is a basketball court-sized miniature train running through redwood forest, old-fashioned mills, towns, forests, and those beloved yet dreaded winding mountain roads.

The Keystone Kops will be back this year, along with Fort Bragg’s own Kangaroo Kort. The Kops salute the foolish comedic police force from old silent movies. The current Kops are a troupe from Sacramento, Webster said. Shriners ride tiny cars and provide other clownish fun in the parade to promote their children’s hospital.

“There really is something for everyone, a lot for families but a lot for adults too,” Webster said.

Monday’s parade, which starts at noon at Pine and Main Street, culminates the event. The parade runs past the announcer’s stand and down to Oak Street, turns east for one block, and then runs one block east to return to Pine on Franklin Street, Fort Bragg’s historic downtown. On parade are the big logging trucks, traditional Mexican rope tricksters and riders, young football squads sometimes taking street tumbles after errant passes, and cheerleaders braving pyramids as well as politicians, fire trucks, local clubs, and labor unions all celebrating the holiday. The wacky and irreverent Humboldt State (now Cal Poly Humboldt) marching band has brought up the rear of the parade for decades.

The big event of Paul Bunyan Days has always been the annual logging show on Sunday, which draws a big crowd and features competitors from outside the area, angling for cash prizes. This year the logging show will cost $15, up from $10, but everyone under 12 gets in for free. Serious woodsmen and women compete for prizes in the logging show, doing things like ax-throwing, using two-person saws and chainsaws. The logging show pole climb is still not back, as that would require installing a suitable pole on the borrowed property of the Skunk Train. It might be back if a more permanent location is found.

But the block-carrying contest is back this year, now involving both men’s and women’s divisions. This traditional competition features competitors carrying a heavy block as far as they can. This event originated with the heavy stone-carrying contests of the Middle Ages in Iceland, Ireland, and Scotland particularly.

Many events from the earliest days continue to be offered, such as a kiddie parade that kicks off the event on Friday, along with hose fights between fire departments. Some early contests will likely never be revived such as the usually bloody bare-knuckle battles to be the Bull of the Redwoods.

Of course, Paul “himself” has always been a big draw. In 1959, former wrestler, heavyweight boxer, and longtime lumber mill worker Chet Shandel was featured standing atop a truck on the Golden Gate Bridge, carrying a huge ax and an even bigger shotgun. The caption in Bay Area newspapers said the shotgun was for the gigantic squirrels that populated the giant redwood trees. Shandel gave way to his nephew Norm Shandel, who played the role for 40 years before he stepped down 15 years ago to Mike Stephens, who tops 6-6 and works in the woods studying spotted owls. “Paul,” together with his predictable plaid workshirt and giant ax, attends events ranging from Saturday’s Ugliest Dog Contest to the Pie Sale to the Gem and Mineral show, which runs through the entire weekend at Fort Bragg Town Hall. The weekend is a flurry of events, many of which happen at the same time and some of which have always been hard for the Paul Bunyan Association to pin down. With a week to go, Webster was still trying to firm up all the particulars on events like the Hot Dog Eating contest.

The event was canceled during World War II and during the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021. But it came roaring back last year to resume as Fort Bragg’s biggest annual event. The event was once the Mendocino Coast’s biggest draw but now promoters might say that about festivals populating virtually every weekend in spring, summer, and fall in Mendocino, Fort Bragg, Caspar, Westport or Elk. In the old days, there were many more traditional parades, but the Mendocino 4th of July Parade and Paul Bunyan Days Labor Day parade survive, along with the lighted truck parade in Fort Bragg at Christmas time. Still no event in Fort Bragg, not even the World’s Largest Salmon Barbecue, rival Paul Bunyan Days. “It’s still our traditional and fun goodbye to summer, back to work and school, although the students go back earlier now,” Webster said. “Come out and have fun with us.”

Paul Bunyan Days takes place August 30-September 2 in Fort Bragg. This year’s theme is the 1980s. More information is available at paulbunyandays.com. Correction the parade starts at noon sharp.

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