"Even when it's raining, we still have 350 people for the tree lighting." Lloyd DeKay, co-chair of Community Partners of Bingen-White Salmon, told that to the Columbia Gorge News in a story about the volunteers the town calls the "Elves."
Those 350 people turn out for an event that volunteers put on. Most of White Salmon's late-fall calendar isn't run by a big festival office. Lodges, a coffee stand, the library's friends group and a nonprofit with bucket trucks each host part of it. Most of it happens on a few blocks of Jewett Boulevard and on the hill that climbs up to it. Between Halloween night and the first weekend of December, the season moves along those roads. Here are the dates and the people behind each one.
October 31: Jewett Closes to Cars
Halloween is on a Saturday this year. The City of White Salmon's Downtown Halloween Festivities run from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. Jewett Boulevard will be closed to traffic so kids can trick-or-treat down the middle of the street. Detours will run at Garfield Avenue on the west end and Estes Avenue on the east end.
Look at who's hosting. The city closes the street, and nearly every stop belongs to someone else.
| Time | Stop | Host and location |
|---|---|---|
| 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. | Trick-or-treating | Along Jewett Boulevard |
| 5:50 p.m. lineup, about 6:00 p.m. step-off | Costume Parade | Starts at City Hall, heads east and loops back |
| 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. | Castle of Curiosities | Inside the Mason Lodge |
| 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. | Trunk or Treat | Elks Lodge members, parking lot at 124 NE Church Street |
| 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. | Festival of Light | Harvest games and treats in the Bubba's Brew parking lot |
The parade is short. It lines up at 5:50 and is scheduled to end at 6:10, so if you're coming from up the hill, plan to park outside the closure and walk in. The Festival of Light is on Wauna Avenue. Bubba's Brew Espresso is a drive-through coffee stand, and on Halloween its parking lot at 60 NE Wauna Ave becomes an evening of harvest games.
Keep the Mason Lodge and the Elks Lodge in mind. You'll see the same buildings again in December.
Before Halloween: The Library's Off Days
The White Salmon Valley Community Library's posted calendar has a closure on Thursday, October 29, two days before Halloween. If you need costume books or a quiet place for homework that week, go Wednesday or Friday.
The rest of the library's holiday schedule:
- Thursday, November 26: closed for Thanksgiving
- Friday, November 27: closed for Native American Heritage Day
- Thursday, December 24, and Friday, December 25: closed
- Thursday, December 31: closes early at 6 p.m.
That Friday is also the first day of the town's longest-running decoration.
Late November: Dock Grade Comes First
White Salmon's season starts on Dock Grade, the road that climbs from SR 14 up to Jewett. This season's regional events guide lists the Dock Grade Ornament Display from November 27 to mid-January and calls it a daytime drive.
Community Partners of Bingen-White Salmon has been doing this kind of work since it formed in 2010, and its own site lists the Dock Grade Christmas ornaments as one of its community events. The Columbia Gorge News described how it gets done. The Elves start at 8 a.m., set up the town Christmas tree first and then move to Dock Grade, with one truck at the bottom of the hill and one at the top. They spend the day up in lifts tying ornaments to the branches over the road by hand.
It started much smaller. The same paper reported that the first year, the Elves hung only five ornaments. They tied each one to a long piece of monofilament, swung it around and launched it into the trees while cars drove past. When it was time to cut them down, the ornaments went flying and the volunteers ran around trying to catch them.
The timing is deliberate. DeKay told the paper the goal each year is to have the ornaments up before Thanksgiving weekend, so out-of-town visitors and people coming home for the holidays see them on the way in. A reporter who grew up here wrote in that story that she used to time her drive up Dock Grade so she could be the first to see the ornaments light up in her high beams. Coming home from college, they told her the long drive was over.
How to Help Keep It Going
Gorge weather breaks some ornaments every winter, and the stock runs low. Community Partners has asked for donated ornaments. Per the Columbia Gorge News, they need to be:
- Plastic, not glass
- At least six inches in diameter
- Dropped off at the Chamber of Commerce, or arranged by emailing Community Partners at [email protected]
Six inches is bigger than most ornaments in a box from the store. The ones on Dock Grade have to be seen from a moving car, high in the branches, in rain.
December 5: The Lights Come Downtown
A week after the ornaments go up on the hill, the season moves to the top of it. The regional guide lists Dreaming of a White Salmon Holiday on Saturday, December 5. The lineup includes business open houses, Friends of the Library Wassail, community caroling, the lighting of the Christmas tree and the menorah, and s'mores fire circles. The listing sends readers to the Mt. Adams Chamber of Commerce events page.
The event is also changing its name. Explore White Salmon has described Dreaming of White Salmon as "transitioning to VILLAGE LIGHTS." Its Village Lights page describes a first-weekend-of-December celebration with a fun run, pop-ups, library activities, maker programming, wine, carolers and a tree lighting. Whatever name ends up on this year's poster, the December 5 date is the one to save, and the chamber's page is where the 2026 times will be.
Last year's program shows how the evening spreads across downtown. In 2025, the tree and menorah were lit at Riverview Bank. Activities were spread among Rheingarten Park, the Masonic Lodge, the White Salmon Library, Gorge MakerSpace, Klickitat Pottery and Mosko Moto. In the season the Columbia Gorge News covered the Elves, the tree lighting was also at Riverview Bank, on December 7 at 5 p.m., on a tree the Elves set up the same morning they started on Dock Grade. Those are past locations, so check the chamber's page before you go.
The Masonic Lodge that hosts the Castle of Curiosities on Halloween was a stop again last December. The library's friends group serves the wassail. The volunteers who climbed into lifts over Dock Grade are the same ones who put up the tree at the lighting.
The Rest of the Gorge That Weekend
White Salmon's tree lighting comes in the middle of a busy weekend on both sides of the river. Here are the other dates from the regional guide, in order:
- Friday, December 4: Hood River Community Tree Lighting and Street Festival, 5 to 7 p.m. on Oak Street, with the lighting between 5:45 and 6:15 p.m.
- December 4 to 6: Christmas in Carson, with a community tree lighting at 6:30 p.m.
- Saturday, December 5: Dreaming of a White Salmon Holiday
- Saturday, December 12: Christmas on the Farm with Santa at Cedar Creek Alpacas, 182 McNichols Road in Cook, with Santa from noon to 2 p.m., the Harmony of the Gorge Chorus, a light display and the farm store
With Hood River's lighting on Friday and White Salmon's on Saturday, a family can go to both without picking one. Cedar Creek Alpacas the following weekend is a short drive west in Cook.
Your Season, Date by Date
- Thursday, October 29: White Salmon library closed
- Saturday, October 31, 5 to 7 p.m.: Halloween on Jewett, parade lineup at City Hall at 5:50
- November 26 to 27: library closed for Thanksgiving and Native American Heritage Day
- Friday, November 27: Dock Grade ornaments listed as up, through mid-January
- Saturday, December 5: Dreaming of a White Salmon Holiday, with tree and menorah lighting
- December 24 to 25: library closed
- Thursday, December 31: library closes at 6 p.m.
Volunteers, lodges and small businesses put on every date on that list, and that kind of community is a big part of what a home here is worth. If you're thinking about selling in the new year, or just wondering where your place stands after a long season on the bluff, Julie Gilbert can walk you through it over a cup of wassail or a coffee from the stand on Wauna. Get your free home valuation, and see you on Jewett on Halloween.
