It’s not just the season of creepy feelings and leering orange squashes. Autumn in Washington is also harvest season for our wholesome, cheerful signature fruit.
Vancouver is uniquely situated to celebrate the apple, a sweetly important part of history here. There are various versions of this tale, but according to a 2010 research paper by Robert Cromwell, chief of interpretation at the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, several sources point to a pocketful of seeds in a seafaring gentleman’s coat in the mid-1820s.
He may have been Emilius Simpson, the brother of Hudson’s Bay Company governor George Simpson, and according to clues we’ve got, he may not even have remembered that those seeds were hitchhiking around the world with him.
“A gentleman 12 years ago, while at a party in London, put the seeds of the grapes and apples he ate in his vest pocket and soon after took a voyage to this country and left them here,” wrote settler Narcissa Whitman in her journal in 1836. “Now they are greatly multiplied.”
If You Go
What: Old Apple Tree Festival (192nd birthday party).
When: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday.
Where: Old Apple Tree Park, 112 S.E. Columbia Way. There’s parking directly south on Columbia Way, or more on East Fifth Street; walk south over the Land Bridge.
Admission: Free.
On the web: www.cityofvancouver.us/ufc/page/old-apple-tree-festival-0
What: 28th annual Riverside Apple Festival.
When: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Oct. 14.
Where: Riverside Christian School, 463 N. Shepherd Road, Washougal.
Admission: Free.
On the web: www.facebook.com/riverside.applefest
Another version was a hand-me-down from Dr. John McLoughlin to the appropriately named Jesse Applegate, who wrote to a friend in 1868 that he learned directly from the fort boss: “…a gentleman ate a fine apple in London and put the seeds in his vest pocket and thought no more about them until he arrived at Vancouver nine or 10 months after, and having on the same vest at dinner, felt the seeds in his pocket, and from these seeds grew the first apple trees in the Pacific — now the most famous country in the world for fruit.”
There’s also a later, juicier version that features a flirtatious lady paring an apple and presenting the seeds to Simpson. Whatever version you prefer, Vancouver’s Old Apple Tree is nearly two centuries old and hailed as the mother of the state apple industry. It still stands, with help from bracing by professional arborists, in its own little city park at the southern edge of the Fort Vancouver site.
That’s the site of this year’s 192nd birthday party, the annual Old Apple Tree festival. It’s an autumn outing featuring live music, hands-on arts and crafts, food, a hard cider garden, tours of the neighboring Confluence Land Bridge and Fort Vancouver — and even tree care workshops, so bring your questions for Bartlett Tree Care and the city’s Urban Forestry department. The Fort Vancouver Antique Equipment Association will be on hand with rope-making and corn-grinding activities.
There’ll also be apple pressing, so everyone is encouraged to bring clean apples and containers for cider.
Riverside apples
If you need still more apple celebration — but want less historical and arboreal information and more chowing down — save the date of Oct. 14 for Riverside Christian School’s 28th Annual Apple Festival in Washougal.
It’s a fundraiser for the school, and it’ll feature apple pies, dumplings, and many more apple-related prepared foods and gifts for sale.
You can even buy discounted apples by the pound. There’ll also be pony rides, face painting, games and more fun for children. If parking fills up, more is available nearby, at the corner of North Shepherd and Third Avenue, with free shuttle service.
