Hurrah for the Boat People!

A number of years ago, Fort Walla Walla Museum began receiving visitors from the Columbia River cruise tours. We started referring to these wonderful people as 'boat people,' something of a joke as they do not in any way resemble one's classic idea of those real, most unfortunate, sojourners. The joke became short hand, so now we when someone is schelepping around the large coffee urn that we can expect 'boat people' that morning.

We recently received some good news, in that CruiseWest, one of the longer-lived cruise lines, will 'tie up' at the Museum through the summer. This is a change from the usual, as the ships normally ply the Columbia only in spring and fall; in summer they could be found in the Inland Passage wending their way to Alaska. For those who don't know, the cruise companies dock in Pasco and bus their clients to Walla Walla for the day.

In speaking with Troy Campbell, the company's Senior Manager of Product Development, I learned that CruiseWest's original intent was to keep the morning agenda purposely open to allow clients a variety of options. Ahem, said the clients, we prefer to visit Fort Walla Walla Museum! We're pretty happy about that ... earlier this month I checked our guest register book and found that we'd logged visitors from 17 states and two countries the first week in May. Much of that variety comes courtesy of the cruise tours, whose clientele comes from all parts of the planet to float through our back yard.

The community benefits from this increase in tourism, too. First of all, these folks are the best ambassadors money can't buy. Invariably, they seem to greatly enjoy a trip to the Museum as well as the community. You can be sure that when they get home, they'll be telling all their friends about "the town so nice they named it twice." Secondly, the group (typically numbering 50-80 people), stop for lunch at a local restaurant (Bob Parrish's Backstage Bistro this summer) and two wineries (Annete Bergevin & Amber Lane's Bergevin Lane and Gordon Venneri & Myles Anderson's Walla Walla Vintners). This is the best that tourism can do, bringing people from outside the community in to spend money.

Perhaps the best part is meeting people from so many backgrounds. Walla Walla is turning into the crossroads of America ... the reason they like it here so much might best be summed by Troy: "The whole town is so gosh-darned nice!"

Today's photos show a bus laden with cruise tourists unloading at the Museum and volunteer Rod Hahn explaining the workings of our Blacksmith Shop to interested visitors. If your a Walla Wallan, you may have noticed Rod on your recent water bill inclusion. Here's a hat tip to Carol at the City for helping us inform the neighborhood of what's good about our town!