Get Outdoors Day fun for all

• What: National Get Outdoors Day, featuring fun and games, walks and tours, historical encampment, photos with wilderness celebrities, including Smokey Bear, much more.

• Where: Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, 1115 E. Fifth St., Vancouver.

• When: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday.

• Cost: Free.

• Information: www.nationalgetoutdoorsday.org, www.fortvan.org

How much time each day do you — and your kids — spend staring at screens, both for work and leisure? And how much time do you spend staring at trees, flowers, birds, the sky— and your own happy family members, doing fun stuff outdoors?

“There are all sorts of statistics out there that kids these days are spending a lot more time inside with screens and electronics,” said Gala Miller, spokeswoman for Gifford Pinchot National Forest. Those statistics tend to underline unhappy results of life on E-Planet: obesity, trouble focusing, poorer performance in school. By contrast, science is also finding concrete benefits to spending time engaged with the natural world: better health and fitness, sharper focus, less stress and more relaxation. (To learn more about this, try www.childrenandnature.org.)

“People who engage with nature tend to be healthier and live longer,” Miller said. “I heard a pretty scary statistic the other day: This is the first generation that’s predicted to live a shorter lifespan than the previous generation.”

What’s the antidote? How about a free day of archery, climbing, jogging, strolling, fishing, dancing, checking out the outdoorsy lifestyles of our ancestors — and hanging with wilderness celebs such as Gary Oak, Woodsy Owl and Smokey Bear?

That’s what’s on tap at the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. June 13, which has been officially designated National Get Outdoors Day. This is the eighth annual celebration of a tradition that began in June 2008; last year there were 139 official G.O. Day sites across the country — and Fort Vancouver’s event is the second-largest, according to Miller, with 5,000-plus people participating annually.

Maybe that’s not surprising, since there may be no place better than the Pacific Northwest to revel in the great outdoors. G.O. Day at the fort will include guided walks around the grounds and over the commemorative land bridge that has reconnected the fort to the Columbia River, and information from the Mount St. Helens Institute, a homegrown nonprofit agency that offers education, protection and guided climbs up and into our own local volcano. The whole world was watching St. Helens’ potent display of natural power as it blew off its pointy top on May 18, 1980.

That’s one kind of outdoor history. You’ll be able to view another as the fort’s annual fur-trader encampment sets up shop, with costumed re-enactors showing how Hudson’s Bay Company fur brigades lived, worked and played in the 1840s. There’ll be demonstrations of cooking and beading techniques, ax-throwing and weapon-firing, as well as music, dance and games of the era. (Ready for some competitive “Cat and Mouse” and “Hoop and Stick”?)

Just a step away from the fort, at Pearson Air Museum, nonprofit agency Second Step Housing will hold its fourth annual Run Like a Girl event, raising funds for families in need while getting its own clients and supporters to undertake some committed outdoor exercise — some of them for the first time ever, organizers have said — in the form of 10K, 5K and kids’ runs. Learn more at www.secondstephousing.org. These runs are open to everyone — but because Run Like a Girl is a fundraiser for a cause, there’s a fee to enter, and registration is required.

Five local partners planned and sponsored this year’s G.O. Day event, according to Miller: the city of Vancouver (whose Water Resources Education Center will be on hand with a water obstacle course), the U.S. Forest Service, the National Park Service and the Parks Foundation of Clark County. Plus, 50 local businesses and organizations are involved one way or another.

“We all hope to connect people to parks and public lands,” said Fort Vancouver Superintendent Tracy Fortmann. “This event is a great way to learn about the opportunities available for recreation and fun in our public lands.”

All of which sounds great in theory — but given our local climate, what if it rains? Could Get Outdoors Day wind up, you know, indoors?

Not a chance.

“Most of our participants have tents,” said Miller. “This is the Pacific Northwest.”