World Photo by Madeline Steege
A plate full of steaming crawdads - ready to eat.
World Photo by Jessica Musicar
Wyatt Norwood, right, pokes and prods his crawdad toward the yellow winner’s circle during the first crawdad race at Lakeside’s Crawdad Festival on Saturday. The Waldport resident got to take his winning steed home, whom he named Bob, after the race.
World Photo by Jessica Musicar
Two crawfish race - slowly - to the center of a target at the first Lakeside Crawdad Festival.
World Photo by Madeline Steege
One of the fun things for kids at the Crawdad festival was the Orbitron. Dakota Stout ,12, of Lakeside orbed until he was a little dizzy, but he was still laughing as he got off the ride.
World Photo by Madeline Steege
Ron Karson of Coos Bay and Tim Favilla of North Bend, both members of Bikers for Christ, manned the big boiling pot of crawdads all day Saturday during the Lakeside Crawdad Festival.
LAKESIDE - Crawdad boils, crawdad aprons, crawdad races, crawdad cookies - in a town known for its fishing, mudbugs ruled the weekend.
So much so, that the more than 1,000 pounds of the Louisiana natives, flown in just for Lakeside's inaugural Crawdad Festival, will be welcomed back next year, and the year after that.
"They're very good," said Gold Beach resident Pat Case. But, "I don't like them looking at me."
Case and her husband, Charlie, said they came to town specifically for the boiled crawdad, which they downed with beer.
One volunteer, Madeline Gonsalves, who wore a crawdad hat complete with swinging claws, said she's so sure the festival is going to be an integral part of Lakeside, organizers made sure to print "annual" on every event T-shirt.
"I'm a crawdad, today," she told one woman minutes before overseeing the crawdad races.
"I think it makes people see that Lakeside is a changed community," Gonsalves said, "because people come into town and see happy people, people working together to achieve this goal."
For the hundreds of visitors and locals who descended on Lakeside County Park for the festival on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the spirit of togetherness didn't seem to weigh heavily on their minds. They were there for the food.
Picking their way through a Styrofoam container filled with red crawfish early Friday night, Lakeside residents Deanna Galindo and David Haynes said they were in ecstatic agony over the fiery crustaceans.
"It's spicy, making my whole head hot," Haynes said around a mouthful. "I'm going to come and hurt myself with crawdads tomorrow."
Event organizer and Lakeside restaurateur Joe Pepper of the 8th Street Grill, who came up with the idea for the Cajun festival, said people came from as far as Louisiana and Texas. He and others from the Lakeside Chamber of Commerce have been planning it for the past seven months.
"I figured if I designed something like this, every year it would grow," Pepper said.
He explained that he'd become aware of a similar festival in Isleton, Calif., where the town of about 680 draws in 50,000 people each day and boils 200,000 pounds of crawfish for the weekend. Putting on Lakeside's own version would not only bring in money for the tiny city, it also would help put Lakeside on the map.
"It's about bringing everyone together," Pepper said. "Everyone involved is going to make a lot of money, not to mention the chamber of commerce."
The festival came with no entry or parking fees, Pepper noted, because he wanted people to enjoy what it had to offer by keeping "fun prices" down.
The three-day festival also featured a Cajun cookoff, judged by Chef Shawn Hanlin - the executive director of the Oregon Coast Culinary Institute at Southwestern Oregon Community College - Gary Dynge, branch manager of Budweiser, Western Beverage Co., and Cindi Miller, a sales manager for K-DOCK.
Miller said the food was pretty tasty. She and her fellow judges got to try out jambalaya, etouffee, bread pudding with peaches, sweet potato pie, and, of course, crawfish and rice.
In addition to its headliner, festival vendors also offered oysters grilled in their shells, served with cocktail sauce heavy on the horseradish, chicken skewers and other food, along with a mess of games and merchandise.
Armed with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, Pepper looked proudly on the festival, and the dozens of people lined up for crawdad, brisket and other barbecue items.
"Look at that line of people. They just can't leave 'em alone," Pepper said.
Kids prod meandering critters to finish in festival races
While parents came to eat crawdads, kids came to play with their food.
At the inaugural Lakeside Crawdad Festival, a group of children gathered Saturday afternoon around a target placed on a picnic table and raced their mudbugs. Each critter had a number painted on its back, and obviously no sense of direction.
While the crawdads did move about as the crowd cheered, getting them to the center winner's circle wasn't easy.
However, Wyatt Norwood, the first race's winner, quickly learned that he could better control the movement of his crustacean by poking it repeatedly in the face. Soon it backed into the yellow circle.
After winning, the Waldport resident said he got to keep his crawdad, which he named Bob.
"It's fun picking up crawdads and doing the race," Wyatt said. "It's exciting because they get to the middle and crawl back out."
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Actually, there are millions of these bad boys up the creeks and rivers all over the coast. I know for a fact that when we were kids, they were basically only used for bait. (Trout love the tail meat!) After spending time in New Orleans and Lafayette, Cajun food has become an obsession! Nothin' finer than some fried gator and a little crawfish etouffee!
The World welcomes your comments about stories, and we encourage a robust dialogue on this site. All comments must meet reasonable standards of decency and civility.
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