Colfax (April 26, 2021) — The first-ever monthlong Snake River Family Festival will kick off May 1, offering free ice cream and festival goody bags for the first 500 registrants.

Registration will open May 1 on the Snake River Family Festival’s Facebook page. Families may register up to five people from their household. The annual festival celebrates the Columbia Snake River System at Boyer Park & Marina, 1753 Granite Rd, in Colfax.

Registrants will receive their free general admission ticket by email and may redeem it any time during Boyer Park’s store hours. Throughout May, the store is open 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday to Thursday and 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. 

The festival goody bags contain games and activities designed for attendees to enjoy a day on the river. Giveaways include a frisbee, sunglasses, bubbles, Snake River posters, a salmon life cycle board game and a crossword puzzle that leads its players along the 3.5-mile Snake River Trail.

2021 marks the fourth year of the festival. The Port of Whitman County hosts the annual event to celebrate the ecological, economic and recreational benefits of the river system to the Palouse:

• The 465-mile river highway provides the most ecologically sound mode of transportation for the crops and products that are shipped from the Palouse to the Pacific Ocean. In 2018, 3.8 million tons of cargo moved through the Snake River channel on the equivalent of 279 four-barge tows. It would have taken 38,966 rail cars or 149,870 semi-trucks to move those goods without barges.
   
• Eliminating the clean power and efficient transportation provided by the Lower Snake River dams would add to climate change by increasing cumulative carbon emissions equivalent to building a coal-fired power plant like the one in Boardman, Oregon, every five or six years.
   
• In addition to fighting climate change, the river system supports world-class investments in fish passage facilities. Juvenile fish survival rates past each of the eight federal dams on the system are between 95% and 98%. Fish populations are stronger than they have been since 1938.
   
• The river system supports thousands of jobs across the region. According to Northwest RiverPartners, hydropower creates 100,000 jobs in the Northwest. According to Pacific Northwest Waterways Association, trade and transportation along the Lower Columbia River creates more than 40,000 jobs.
   
• Because of the lower Snake River dams, the Palouse enjoys unrivaled recreational opportunity. Beautiful on-water facilities, such as Boyer Park and Marina, were made possible by reservoirs filling behind the dams and creating lakes.

For more event information and to register starting May 1, please visit the Snake River Family Festival on Facebook. 

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About the Port of Whitman County

The Port of Whitman County is dedicated to improving the quality of life for all citizens of Whitman County through industrial real estate development, preservation of multi-modal transportation, facilitation of economic development and provision of on-water recreational opportunities.