Every year near Portland, Halloween-costumed contestants race across a lake in dugout boats made from giant pumpkins. When I came across this quintessential weird Oregon event, I knew immediately that we had to go.
Giant pumpkins have a special place in my family’s lore. When I was around twelve, my dad gave my older brother and me our own sections of the backyard vegetable garden. Then one day, he came home with a pack of seeds.
“These are giant pumpkin seeds. With these seeds, people can grow pumpkins that are a thousand pounds.”
Alex and I stared at the small seeds, our eyes round.
That summer, the pumpkin competition began. We each planted a pumpkin in our garden plots and pored over my dad’s Giant Pumpkin book for hints at how ours might grow larger than the others. We sheltered our baby pumpkins from the cool Seattle summer with little makeshift greenhouses we built from sheets of plastic and sticks.
The vines soon escaped their natal greenhouses and unfurled all over the small backyard, spilling over the cinder block edges of our raised garden. Their huge, flat leaves and thick green stalks knew no boundaries. Tendrils scurried over the neighbor’s fence, easily enveloped the yellow slide we’d played on when we were younger, and inched toward the wood shed at the edge of the yard. There was no question of growing anything else in the garden that year. The pumpkins had taken over.
When bright orange flowers appeared, my dad showed us how to distinguish the male and female flowers, and how to fertilize the flowers so they would set pumpkins faster.
Once the fruits had set, we removed all but the largest pumpkin on each vine. And then we waited for them to grow huge.
Our pumpkins didn’t reach 1000 pounds, but the largest one clocked in at a solid 140. Even a 140-pound pumpkin is a force to be reckoned with. My dad heaved it onto a dolly and drove it to work, where it was the prize for a charity raffle. He soon became the Pumpkin Man, tasked each year with producing a pumpkin for the auction.
I sculpted my pumpkin (not quite as large) into the most elaborate jack-o-lantern I’d ever made, and entered it into my middle school pumpkin-decorating contest. The pumpkin skin was so thick it could be chiseled like soft wood, creating a ghoulish face with sharp relief.
Now in my thirties, I called my dad and told him the news: We could see giant pumpkins in action at the West Coast Giant Pumpkin Regatta! Yes, the contestants would be racing across a lake inside giant pumpkins.
He said he’d be there.
The West Coast Giant Pumpkin Regatta in a Nutshell
The Giant Pumpkin Regatta was packed when we arrived. A crowd of seemingly thousands hovered around a tiny artificial lake in Tualatin, Oregon. All eyes were fixed on the lake’s center, where a dozen or so costumed contestants were bobbing in their plump pumpkin watercraft. Among them, I saw Superman, a scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz, and what looked plausibly like a blue dinosaur with a pink mohawk.
A loudspeaker overhead made announcements. I couldn’t distinguish most of the words, but it gave a festive charge to the air as we all waited. Safety staff on paddle boards and canoes plied the water near the pumpkin paddlers, ready for a rescue should a pumpkin capsize.
Then suddenly, they were off. It wasn’t quite like watching the start of an Olympic swim race. I could tell they had started because their paddles were suddenly churning furiously, but the pumpkins made scant progress across the lake. They waddled from side to side. I reflected that if James and the Giant Peach were real, the giant peach would look like one of these waddling pumpkins as it sailed out to sea.
If you’re curious what exactly a waddling pumpkin boat looks like in action, check out our video of the giant pumpkin regatta below!
I wondered what it must feel like to be inside one of those pumpkins. Fall was running several weeks behind this year, and it was an uncharacteristically hot October day. The sun beamed down on the contestants in their full-body dinosaur suits. The event rules had warned that participants were likely to end up covered in pumpkin slime. It seemed there were certain advantages to being a spectator.
Near the lake, the two largest pumpkins from this year’s pumpkin weigh-off were proudly displayed on the lawn. The winner had clocked in at more than 1700 pounds. No sooner had we begun to wonder about how such an object could be transported than we caught sight of a pickup truck, giant pumpkin in the back. I supposed they didn’t need to worry about anyone running off with it.
Beyond the giant pumpkin races, the festival brimmed with pumpkin oddities. We passed colorful blown-glass pumpkins, knitted miniature pumpkins, pumpkin cakes, pumpkin tic tac toe, pumpkin checkers….There was even a spirited game of pumpkin bowling underway. Children with expressions of great focus were rolling sugar pie pumpkins toward sets of bowling pins. I noticed a few pumpkins with duct tape bandages where they must have bounced too hard on the pavement.
Pumpkin revelers filled the outdoor seating at restaurants lining the little suburban lake. A woman in a knitted pumpkin hat frowned slightly as she studied a menu at an outdoor cafe. An aroma of fried things drifted over from a cluster of food trucks.
What to Know Before You Go to the Giant Pumpkin Regatta
The Giant Pumpkin Regatta is an annual tradition in Tualatin. Most festivities are ongoing throughout the day, but check the pumpkin regatta website for the times of the pumpkin races so you’ll be able to see the pumpkins in action.
As you approach the freeway exit for the event, traffic will likely slow to a standstill. I’d recommend arriving 45 minutes to an hour ahead of the pumpkin races so you can park, walk or take the shuttle over to the event, and stake out a place along the lakeshore to watch.
This part of town is curiously packed with suburban shopping malls, so parking abounds. The event organizers run yellow school bus shuttles out to the various lots, or you can walk from the lots to the lake. We parked in one of the further lots, and the walk was just 12 minutes.
Let me know in the comments if you check out the event, or if you’ve ever grown a giant pumpkin!
Leave a Reply