Duck Daze

On the fourth Saturday in August, a thousand numbered rubber ducks go into the North Platte River at Guernsey, a railroad town between the river and the Haystack Mountains, and float bridge to bridge. The race starts at 10:30 in the morning. Only the first five ducks across the finish line pay. In 2026 first place paid $750, second $500, third $250, and fourth and fifth $100 each. Winners need not be present. Entries are sold ahead of time as Quack Packs at Howshar Hardware or the Guernsey Visitor Center. The North Platte does not always cooperate. Four days before the August 22, 2026 race, the organizers posted: “No worries-if the river is too low, we have a fun back up plan for the duck race!” Their pictures from the bank that morning carried the caption “Crowd, guides and ducks,” and the winners were announced by afternoon.

The day at the Pool Park

The race is the center of a full Saturday program. The day also includes a 5k footrace called the Duck Dash, a cornhole tournament, and activities for children. From 11:00 to 2:00 a one-day Duck Daze Market sets up at what the town calls the “Pool Park.” This market is separate from Guernsey’s weekly summer market, which meets Thursday evenings in Gordon Davis Park.

The Pool Park is the sports complex at 398 West Chugwater Street. Its swimming pool has a 90-foot water slide and play features for small children, and it sits beside a baseball field, a concession building, a basketball court, and playgrounds. Platte County voters approved a 1% Capital Facilities Tax in November 2008, and the new pool was built with that money.

The town’s parks page also names Gordon Davis Park, beside Highway 26 downtown, among the grounds that host Duck Daze. The park has a band shelter, horseshoe pits, shaded picnic tables, and a Historic Plaza where bronze medallions mark a miniature Oregon Trail through native plantings. The Visitor Center and Museum, one of the two places that sell Quack Packs, stands at the southwest end of the park. The 2026 summer concert series listed a show for August 22, the same day as Duck Daze, with the performer still to be announced.

A fundraiser and a dog park

Duck Daze belongs to the Guernsey Economic and Tourism Development Corporation, a nonprofit that promotes the town and also runs its Fourth of July, Treat Street, and Winter’s Eve. In August 2017 the Platte County Record-Times ran a story headlined “’Duck Daze in the Dark’ to be held in Guernsey.” It began: “Seven years ago, Guernsey’s Economic and Tourism Development Corporation was looking for a way to bring some people to town and provide some fun for the community.” By that count the event dates from about 2010.

Other causes have found room in the day. During Duck Daze in 2021, Guernsey resident Pamela McClure organized the first Operation Scooby Pageant/Talent Show to draw attention to her campaign for a town dog park. She had asked the town for land and gotten it. Then, she told the Guernsey Gazette, “And then COVID hit.” She went on: “I really don’t feel good about hitting up businesses that are already hurting.” So she took the cause to residents instead.

Her committee cut the plan back to a single acre inside the rodeo grounds, the “Old Timers” arena north of the golf course. McClure’s fundraising and money from Wyoming community gas paid to put the project out for bid. Brad Cook Construction began the metal fence in mid-September 2022. The cutbacks had cost the park its separate pen for small dogs. “We were hoping to have a dividing fence for little dogs and big dogs,” McClure said, “and I’m cutting back on that right now and they will all just have to get along.”