Trees, apples, cider and fun for the whole family offered at annual event
VANCOUVER — Vancouver’s legendary Old Apple Tree – strongly rooted in the Clark County community – turns 192 this year.
The community is invited to celebrate at the annual Old Apple Tree Festival, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sat., Oct. 6, at the Old Apple Tree Park, 112 S.E. Columbia Way, directly east of the Interstate 5 Bridge within the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site.
This family-friendly, free event offers live music, tree care workshops, Vancouver Land Bridge tours, kids’ hands-on arts and crafts, and food for purchase. The popular free apple pressing also returns to the event; the public is encouraged to bring clean apples and clean containers to take home fresh juice.
For the second year, the Old Apple Tree Festival is teaming up with Slow Food Southwest Washington, which will be hosting a hard cider garden, complete with sales of hard cider and tastings of hard cider, cheese, and heirloom apples.
Want an Old Apple Tree of your own? The city of Vancouver’s Urban Forestry Commission will be giving away a limited number of tree cuttings from the venerable old tree during the festival.
Planted in 1826 at Fort Vancouver, Vancouver’s Old Apple Tree is the oldest apple tree in the Pacific Northwest, the matriarch of Washington State’s apple industry. Despite floods, winds, drought, ice and snow, the tree has survived and continues to produce some fruit.
The Old Apple Tree Festival is presented by the Urban Forestry Commission in partnership with the City of Vancouver’s Urban Forestry, a Public Works Department program; Bartlett Tree Care; Slow Food Southwest Washington; and the National Parks Service.
For more information about the Old Apple Tree Festival and Vancouver’s efforts to enhance the community’s trees and the benefits they bring to residents and businesses, please call Urban Forestry at (360) 487-8308 or visit www.cityofvancouver.us/urbanforestry.
