Klickitat Canyon Days

Just before eleven on the Saturday of Canyon Days, Main Street in Klickitat closes to traffic. Main Street is also State Highway 142. The parade starts at the Klickitat sign at the south end of town and runs to the Klickitat Community Center. Spectators watch from Depot Park or anywhere along the road. In 2026 the line included the Grand Marshals (the Kessinger family), the Klickitat Derby Duck, community organizations, first responders, and the classic cars and motorcycles of the car show. After the parade the cars and motorcycles park in the Community Center lot until noon, and the organizers invite visitors to “come drool over the coolness.” The highway reopens around 11:30.

Canyon Days is the town’s annual festival “celebrating life in the Klickitat Canyon.” It is always held on the last full weekend in July and is run as a nonprofit by the Klickitat Canyon Days Committee. The 2026 festival ran from 5:00 PM on Friday, July 24, to 4:00 PM on Sunday, July 26. The town’s website billed it as the 49th annual. The Greater Goldendale Area Chamber of Commerce had billed the 2024 edition as the 46th. Most events are free. The committee tells visitors to expect hot, sunny weather and to bring a swimsuit and a lawn chair. Parking is free throughout town and in the school lot.

Hot dogs and The Goonies

The weekend opens Friday at 5 with the Kiddie Carnival at the Community Center, which offers free carnival games with prizes for children about two to ten. At 6:30 the free Family Dinner in the Park begins outside the building. Everyone gets a hot dog, chips, and a bottle of water, and families spread blankets and chairs on the grass.

At 7:30 the 1985 The Goonies, rated PG, is shown inside the Community Center, out of the heat. Viewers lie on the floor on blankets, sleeping bags, and pillows, and lawn chairs are allowed at the back. Everyone gets a free bag of popcorn. Because the building is air-conditioned, the organizers advise bringing warm layers.

Saturday on the Community Center field

Saturday starts with the Klickitat Volunteer Fire Department’s fundraising breakfast at the Community Center from 7 to 10. It serves pancakes or biscuits and gravy, sausage, and hot drinks, at $10 for a small plate and $15 for a large. At 8 the 5K walk and run leaves from outside the Community Center, near the concessions building. Dogs and children are welcome on the course.

The Open Air Crafter’s Market fills the Community Center field from 10 to 4. Vendors sell local art, woodwork, handmade gifts, jewelry, clothing, and home decor, along with food and drink. Community organizations set up tables with information, giveaways, and activities for children. The Welcome Booth sells Canyon Days shirts and stickers, and it also sells derby ducks for Sunday.

After the parade the field fills up. The Big River Blues Band, back in 2026 for a third year in a row, plays free from 11:30 to 4, and listeners bring chairs and blankets. The family games run over the same hours: a water slide, slip ‘n slides, carnival games, and the Bookmobile, all free. Inside the Community Center a cooling station opens at 11:30 with air conditioning, a drinking fountain, and restrooms. New in 2026, the kitchen sold ice cream sundaes. Food for the rest of the weekend comes from the market and from the town’s own Sage Coffee Shop and Bakery, the Canyon Market, Huntington’s, and The Hive Restaurant and Bar.

The Klickitat Museum keeps special hours for the festival: 9:30 to 4 on Saturday and 10 to 1 on Sunday. The museum is run locally. It holds Native American artifacts, along with photographs and memorabilia of the mill, the school, and Canyon Days itself.

Bingo and a thousand ducks

On Sunday, bingo takes over the Community Center for two sessions, at 9 and at 1, with doors opening an hour before each. 2026 was only the second year of Canyon Days Bingo, hosted by Cassie Rae and Deidra Sabedra. It is for players 18 and over, and everyone in the room must be playing because there is no seating for spectators. Games cost $1 to $3, in cash, and there is no ATM at the hall. Daubers sell for $2, or players can use the free markers on each table. Sage Coffee Shop served biscuits and gravy at the morning session and hot dogs and chips in the afternoon, with baked goods all day.

The 2026 prizes totaled more than $2,500. They included a Blackstone griddle, a $500 tattoo gift card, a paddleboard, an iPad, two Instant Pots, and two firepits. Players who came dressed in bingo gear had a chance at a free card, with one winner per session. That evening the hosts posted: “Scott hit big today on the wheel game in honor of Sandy Hayden’s memory!”

Between the sessions, at 11, comes the Ducky Derby, which the committee calls a long-standing tradition. A thousand numbered rubber ducks are dropped into the river and float to the town river access at the end of 1st Street. There they are plucked from the water, and spectators may help. Then the winning numbers are called out. Ducks cost $3 each and are sold in Klickitat stores in the weeks before the festival and at the Welcome Booth on Saturday. Sponsors donate the prizes. The derby is the festival’s main fundraiser. Along with sponsorships, it pays for the free dinner and movie, the music, and the children’s games, and it supports other town groups such as Klickitat Salutes and the local PTO.

The mill, the Timber Festival, and a soda fountain

The town takes its name from the river and canyon, and according to Washington State Parks, that name comes from the first people of this land: Sahaptian and Interior Salish Indigenous people. The town’s first sawmill was built in 1909 by the Western Pine Lumber Company, which brought logs down by incline railway from the wooded plateau above the canyon. In 1922 the J. Neils Lumber Company of Minnesota bought the mill and moved its main operation to Klickitat. A logging spur farther up the river kept running steam locomotives until it closed in 1964, the last working line in the United States to do so.

In about 1930 the Huntington family bought the general store and renamed it Huntington’s. Their daughter Shirley was nine months old when they arrived. She later ran the store with her mother after her father died in 1951, and afterward with her husband, Raymond Jacobs. Her obituary in the Goldendale Sentinel says generations of local children came in for her milkshakes and the many flavors of “Coke” from the soda fountain. It also lists among the highlights of her life being asked to serve as Grand Marshal of the Klickitat Canyon Days Parade.

The festival began in the 1970s, according to the committee. The town’s website shows photographs of early Canyon Days lent by the museum, one captioned as a log roll competition. The 2026 Grand Marshals were BJ Kessinger and Chuck and Kristy Kessinger. They were nominated for being “integral to Klickitat’s Timber Festival and therefore Canyon Days and the town in general.” Chuck and Kristy were represented by their children, Keith and Traci Kessinger. BJ was represented by his son and daughter-in-law, Joe and Renee Kessinger. The website sends anyone curious about the Timber Festival to the museum.

The mill, which merged with the St. Regis Paper Company in 1957, closed in 1990, and the railroad through the canyon stopped running the same year. By 1992 its tracks and ties had been pulled up. Huntington’s general store was also sold in 1990. A Huntington’s appears on the 2026 festival map as a bar and grill.