Quinton Smith **Led by Yachats artist Michael Guerriero, right, volunteers have been creating and then painting all sorts of animals that will appear in the “Wild Things” celebration and parade on Saturday.**

By CHERYL ROMANO/YachatsNews

YACHATS — Nature’s creations rule downtown Yachats on Saturday, when the community’s first “Wild Things” festival ambles, soars and swims into town.

From 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., free, family-friendly activities will inform, educate and entertain as the biodiversity of the Oregon coast takes center stage. Sponsored by the Yachats Chamber of Commerce, the event will feature nature walks, whale watching, a giant puppet show and parade, live music and more.

“We didn’t want a ‘table event’ with brochures handed out,” said Yachats chamber tourism director Mindy Parsons. “We wanted it to be whimsical … eccentric and quirky, like the spirit of the town.”

To aid that whimsical spirit, costumes are encouraged for any and all attendees.

“There’ll be people dressed as wild critters, plants, maybe some invasive species and everyone is invited to take part in the parade at the end of the day,” Parsons said.

**Salmon are ready to return upstream during the “Wild Things” parade on Saturday.**

Events are centered around the Yachats Commons and downtown core, beginning with interactive and educational booths and workshops in the Commons. There’ll be tide pooling and whale watching at the Yachats State Park platform, library story time in Room 3 of the Commons every hour, a native plant sale, a conservation speaker at the Yachats Lions Club, a bubble-blowing station next to the Pavilion, guided nature walks, crafts and more.

Also planned is a silent auction for the original painting by Lucinda Cross used in the “Wild Things” poster. Proceeds will benefit View the Future, the local land conservancy.

Area groups involved in the festival include the Coast Range Association, Yachats Public Library, Oregon Shores Conservation Coalition, MidCoast Watershed Council, Lincoln Soil and Water Conservation District, Audubon Society of Lincoln City, SWIFTY (Swallows in Flight To Yachats), Oregon Coast National Wildlife Refuges, Oregon Coast Aquarium, Elakha Alliance, Oregon Sea Grant, View the Future, Cape Perpetua Collaborative, Pollinator 101 and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

For full details and a schedule of activities, visit the chamber’s website.

Organizers hope “Wild Things” will become an annual event, celebrating the plants and animals of the coast. It’s the brainchild of Jim Welch, a Yachats resident and co-leader of SWIFTY, a bird conservation group.

“I thought we needed something family-oriented, free and experiential to get kids engaged with this wonderful environment,” Welch said.

As he pondered a theme for celebrating nature, two popular “Wild Things” came to mind — the 1966 rock hit by The Troggs (“Wild thing, you make my heart sing”), and Maurice Sendak’s classic children’s book, Where the Wild Things Are.

Although it was easy enough to turn the song title into the festival name, Sendak’s foundation was unresponsive to inquiries.

The name “Wild Things” is “also a way of communicating the eclectic nature of this town,” Welch explained. “That spirit of fun, like the La de da parade.”

Quinton Smith **Volunteers add finishing touches to a giant papier maché gray whale during a painting party Sunday in preparation for the “Wild Things” festival Saturday.**

Puppets on parade

Six months into planning the festival with the chamber, Welch contacted local artist Michael Guerriero to see about fashioning animal masks for the event. That idea morphed into producing giant papier maché puppets, which will highlight the “Parade of the Wild Things” at the close of the festival.

Under Guerriero’s direction, a crew of 20 to 30 volunteers helped create the critters in the forms of a puffin, sea star, salmon, whale and otter. Each puppet takes three to five people to operate; plans are to use them again in this year’s La de da parade on July 4.

Advance response to “Wild Things” has been “tremendous,” Welch said.

In addition to the volunteer work involved, local musicians will perform at various festival locations and the band Your Song My Song will be on stage at the Commons. The environment-focused children’s entertainment group is offering a musical show supported by the Space For Art Foundation.

“We’re a very environment-focused group of people, living on the finest section of the Oregon coast,” Welch said. “This wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for the nature of the town, and our own chamber of commerce.”