UNLESS YOU’VE BEEN living under a rock in some OTHER national park, you know about Port Angeles and its awesome performance in Outside magazine’s 2015 “Best Town Ever”‘ online contest in May and early June.
One of four last-minute wild-card entries, Port Angeles — rallied by the Revitalize Port Angeles Facebook group — won five rounds in a 64-city tournament modeled on the NCAA-style “March Madness” elimination contest before going up against against Chattanooga, Tenn., the Southern Division winner and a former national winner (2011) of the annual Outside contest.
The contest seemed mismatched — Port Angeles, with a population of 19,000 up against the Tennessee city of 170,000.
Chattanooga won. But Port Angeles — which garnered more than three times its population in votes against the popular Southern city — showed itself to be the Little Town That Could in its second-place national finish.
It wears the crown as the contest’s Western Division champ, and it was profiled — along with Chattanooga and 14 other finalists — in the September issue of Outside, a nationally recognized outdoor and adventure magazine, which is now on newsstands (if not already sold out) at Port Book & News in downtown Port Angeles and other locations.
To get to the finals, fans of Port Angeles outperformed voters backing Santa Barbara, Calif., our sibling city in Kitsap County, Bainbridge Island; Glenwood Springs, Colo.; Flagstaff, Ariz.; and Bar Harbor, Maine, in the contest.
Signs urging residents to vote for their town went up all over town — on business readerboards, windows and restaurant tables — as organizations ranging from the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce to Black Ball Ferry Line promoted voting.
Support also came from outside town. Gov. Jay Inslee, the Sequim-bred Emblem3 band, U.S. Sens. Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray, and Congressman Derek Kilmer — a Port Angeles native — tweeted their support. Western Washington University called for votes on its Facebook page, and the Seahawks called on people to vote for Port Angeles.
The contest was a smashing success, PR-wise.
The chamber of commerce got scores of calls asking for information about Port Angeles. Area inns and bed and breakfasts got bookings.
People later commenting on the Outside website said they planned to visit after seeing photographs of the natural beauty of the Port Angeles area and Olympic National Park. Port Angeles is the gateway town to the national park.
(READ MORE ABOUT the contest — and how Port Angeles sent sympathy banners to Chattanooga after shootings there on July 16 killed four Marines and a Navy sailor — by searching the news archives at the Peninsula Daily News website, www.peninsuladailynews.com.)
Here’s what Outside wrote about Port Angeles in its September issue (with a nod, too, in a sidebar story to Brown’s Outdoor in PA; see story at right.):
The 16 Best Places to Live in America: 2015
A river- and mountain-loving town took home the top prize — again — in our annual contest. But the other finalists have something for everyone, too . . .:
In the final throes of this year’s contest, Port Angeles (population 19,000) staged an impressive fight.
Homeowners put placards in their yards reminding passersby to vote, businesses made pleas on sandwich boards, and locals stood on street corners with signs.
The town ended up coming in second to Chattanooga — which has almost ten times the population — by just 2 percent of the vote.
The message was clear. “We love this town, and this community can really pull together,” says Jacob Oppelt, owner of Next Door Gastropub [in downtown Port Angeles].
Situated on the northern shore of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, Port Angeles is a gateway to Olympic National Park.
Because of the dramatic relief — the peaks rise to over 5,000 feet within a few miles of the coast—the area hosts diverse ecosystems, including alpine environments studded with lakes, ultragreen old-growth forests threaded with whitewater rivers, and bays that harbor orcas and steelhead.
“I call it the holy land,” says John Gussman, a local photographer. “We don’t have smog or traffic, and we have this beautiful million-acre wilderness in the backyard.”
Not surprisingly, the local culture is built on an appreciation of the outdoors, and the economy is boosted by adventure travelers. It’s not uncommon to see surfers toting boards through town or cars stuffed with gear for forays into the park.
More recently, mountain bikers have arrived to ride the burly downhill trails in the 600,000-acre national forest.
But Port Angeles isn’t your typical bro experience.
There’s a healthy population of retirees — the town’s average age is 42 — and a strong blue-collar flavor.
The town lumberyard sits near the sea-kayak put-in, there’s an active boat-building industry, and commercial fishing for halibut and Dungeness crab is a mainstay.
These industries infuse the town with a grittier feel than artsy neighbor Port Townsend and sleepy nearby retirement community Sequim.
But they also help keep home prices reasonable — the median is $201,000 — and engender a live-and-let-live ethos.
Longtime residents and progressive newcomers manage not only to get along, but also to come together.
Take the recent Elwha River restoration: the largest dam removal in the country’s history took place just upstream from town and gained strong local support.
Now, for the first time in 100 years, trout and salmon are migrating past old dam sites, and greenery is sprouting in empty reservoirs.
Port Angeles isn’t big, but as this year’s Best Towns showing demonstrates, it can compete with just about anyplace.
“In high school, I couldn’t get away from here fast enough,” says fifth-generation resident Sara Gagnon, owner of Harbinger Winery. “But once I got out and saw the world, I couldn’t wait to get back.”
READ THE FULL STORIES:
“The 16 Best Places to Live in America: 2015” — click on: http://www.outsideonline.com/2006426/americas-best-towns-2015?utm_source=facebook ) ,
“Visiting One of the Best Towns in America? Visit Their Best Outfitters, Too” — click on: http://www.outsideonline.com/2008586/best-outfitters-best-towns-america#sthash.MNJPg92a.dpufhttp://bit.ly/1TS8eso
