A Taste of History

Whiskeytown Lake Harvest Festival Celebrates NorCal Heritage and Historic Fall Foods…

Whiskeytown Lake is once again hosting its biggest event of the year, the Harvest Festival, on September 21. From 10am-2pm, people will have the chance to taste heirloom apples from the Tower House Historic District’s own orchard, view cider press demonstrations, walk around the historic Camden House and enter (or at least help judge) the harvest fruit bake/cookoff.

“We will have a harvest fruit baking and cooking competition. It’s not just apples this year, it’s open to any late summer fruit or harvest vegetable that’s in theme with the Tower House Historic District. And it’s not just limited to baking desserts, but actual main dishes,” says Supervisory Interpretive Park Ranger Scott Einberger.

“Apples are the primary historic fruit that grow here, but this year we’re changing it,” Einberger says. “Apples, pears and peaches were the biggest fruits grown at Levi’s (Levi Tower, founder of the Tower House Hotel), but cherries, figs and plums are welcome, too. The dish can be sweet or savory, and anyone can enter.”

Usually, contestants make a lot of their dish and cut it up into bite-sized pieces for all visitors to try, and it’s the attendees who determine the winners. “Attendees really participate and celebrate old-timey dishes and desserts,” says Einberger. To enter, people contact Einberger ahead of time and have their dish ready to serve by 10:30am the day of the event, then voting happens from 11am-1pm or until the food runs out. The first place prize is a National Park pass (valid to enter other parks like Lassen Volcanic National Park) valued at around $80.

The Harvest Festival is in the spirit of the apples harvested from its own Tower House orchard that have been around for at least 150 years, along with some pear trees. “They were planted in the 1850s and 1860s,” Einberger says. “The fruit trees here grow slowly – ours are small, but mighty; they’re very aged.”

In 2022, the 20 participants mostly brought apple desserts. “I remember a lot of pies from that year,” Einberger says, although the staff generally does not participate, instead leaving the tasting to the attendees. There were three dishes last year, one of them being Apple Pie Baked Beans.

The Whiskeytown Harvest Festival has taken place annually since 2011, with the exceptions of 2018 to 2021 when it was put on a hiatus due to the Carr Fire and COVID pandemic. Along with the harvest fruit tasting contest, Whiskeytown usually has an Indigenous group that shares a special activity with attendees. This year, Redding Rancheria will be present, which is a federally recognized tribe with Wintu, Pit River and Yana people. A Wintu bark house will be on display, along with other family-friendly activities.

“Gold panning is popular; people learn how to gold pan here and then go do it on their own,” Einberger says. He also remembers the Shasta State Historic Park folks teaching kids how to make dolls out of corn husks, which was also a big hit.

Costumed docents will be walking around, and live music will be available from a past artist-in-residence. Firefighters will have their trucks on display.

“As an interpretive park ranger we’re used to leading formal tours, so this is a very different casual way for people to engage with Whiskeytown’s heritage and cultural activities,” Einberger says.

For more information about the Whiskeytown Harvest Festival, visit www.nps.gov/whis. A valid park entrance pass is needed to attend the event which can be bought at the Visitor Center, Oak Bottom or online at Recreation.gov. •