It was a Bowfest for the ages as last Saturday’s festival may have been the most attended ever and one of the best.

The event saw islanders, their families and friends come out for the Bowfest 2009 Run for the Ferry, for the parade and for everything else.

People kept coming right up until Tony Dominelli’s festival-ending set at 9:30 p.m., a set including a song from the long-time islander’s 16-year-old daughter, Georgia, highlighting the fact that Bowfest is all about community, family and kids.

And there were lots of kids.

“I built a boat and played mini-golf and went on that whirly-whirl thing,” one of them, six-year-old Ryan Kerr said about Bowfest. “It was really fun.”

The Bowfest field had entertainment and booths laden with information and with food and fun for all ages, and on the two stages there was music made virtually entirely by locals.

And everywhere, on the walkway, on the field, at the animal farm, there were people.

“We sold 2,000 tickets last year,” festival secretary Barbara Wiltshire said as she cleaned up the day following. “And I think this year it may have been even more.”

Karen Redmond, president of the Bowfest 2009 committee, pointed out that even the volunteers - she said there were 500 – paid for their tickets, as did she and Wiltshire, Greg Pollard, Sharon Haggerty and other members of the committee.

“We’re very happy,” she said over lunch at Doc Morgan’s after helping with cleaning up the next day. “There was not one single issue.”

Kids got it all underway as the Run for the Ferry added a 1.5-km run for children 12 and under that began at 9 a.m.; no results were posted but nine-year-old Romeo Minoose was quick out of the gate. Some kids choose to run in the adult 5-km race, which along with the tortourous10-km run started at 9:37 a.m.

Grady Huskisson won the boys’ 12 and under 5-km race, while Katie Brougham won the girls division. A senior runner who won her division was Vancouverite Judith Bowersox, age 70. Like numerous other off-islanders, Bowersox has been coming to Bowfest for many years.

The parade began after the run and was packed with Morris dancers and fire trucks and colourful floats of all kind. The car carrying this year’s Citizen of the Year, Nairn Knipe, broke down and she and her entourage had to walk much of the way; Knipe’s reaction illustrated the spirit of the festival.

“Not a problem,” she said after her lengthy stroll. “It was wonderful.”

Perhaps further illustrating the festival’s spirit, bass player Mark Sangster said that when he left Saturday night he forgot his expensive Fender Jazz bass on the Bowfest stage. He went back the next morning and there it was, right where he left it. As Sangster suggested, it was a nice coda to a great festival.

“It was an awesome Bowfest,” islander Ed Kane said.

editor@bowenislandundercurrent.com