More than a dozen cars with their trunks popped open lined the edge of the Petersburg Indian Association (PIA) parking lot. It was a week before Halloween, and participants handed out candy from cars decorated as giant spiders and witches’ cauldrons. Skeletons peeked out of backseats at the children wandering by.
While the fall weather was cold and cloudy, it didn’t stop dedicated kids in costume.
“I’m at trunk or treat,” explained eight-year-old Sigrid Wollen, “We’re trunk or treating!”
A trunk or treat is similar to regular trick or treating, but there’s a key difference: instead of walking from house to house, trunk or treaters walk from car to car in a certain location.
It was Sigrid’s first trunk or treat, and she dressed as Princess Jasmine underneath her raincoat. She said she was a fan of the whole experience.
“It’s pretty cool,” she said.
Veronica Ware is the Johnson-O’Malley (JOM) director with PIA. The JOM program offers culture and education programming for Indigenous youth.
Ware helped plan the trunk or treat, and said the event was a first for her, the tribe, and possibly Petersburg.
“We have really enthusiastic participants, and the kids are happy to see it,” Ware said. “So yeah, this is brand new for us.”
Nearly an hour into the two-hour event, Ware said they’d already seen more than 50 kids.
“It’s been really successful,” she said.
While the event was fun and festive for the season, Ware said the trunk or treat is part of a broader goal: community building. She said that after the pandemic, she hopes that the community can come together with more events.
“PIA is really looking at how we can bring our community together; that’s our main focus,” Ware said.
Ware said that when she looked for what kind of Halloween event to host, she wanted something that was low effort, but could attract a lot of people.
“Trick or treating isn’t as big as it used to be, so we were looking for ways people who love Halloween, love trick or treaters, could participate with slightly minimal effort,” she said. “But you’ll see some people really did go all out.”
One of those people was Sarah Pedersen with the Clausen Museum. She stood behind the cardboard helm of a replica ghost ship, armed with a skeleton crew and chocolate candy.
“So this is a real ghost ship story of the steamship Clara Nevada, which sank in 1898 with gold onboard that’s never been found,” Pedersen explained. “All the passengers perished in the sinking.”
Pedersen said she loves Halloween, and that the kids seemed to enjoy the Clara Nevada.
Nearby, PIA Council President Carol Martinez was handing out candy from a car decorated with a headless skeleton and tombstones.
“You know, the skeleton was very popular, even though I couldn’t find the head to it,” Martinez said.
She said that she enjoyed that there was a family-friendly event during the day, so she came to participate.
“We have no young ones in our home, so it was fun to come out and see everybody, and our tribal citizens,” she said.
A few cars down, it would have been easy to mistake Keston Lyons for a scarecrow sitting in the back of a van from Hammer and Wikan, a local grocery store. He had a gigantic carved jack-o-lantern on his head, and sat perfectly still.
“I basically thought, why not dress up in the Hammer and Wikan uniform with plastic bags as stuffing to look like an actual stuffed prop and scare unsuspecting people?” he said.
Lyons reported that he surprised at least 15 people.
“This pumpkin on my head for two hours has been so worth it,” he said. “Heavy, but it’s worth it.”
11-year-old Tymber Marlow collected candy from the van in her witch costume. It was also her first trunk or treat, and she said the vibes were good.
“Like a lot of people have really good costumes, and there’s a lot of treats and stuff, and a lot of stuff to do, like running around,” Tymber said.
Good costumes and good treats were the theme of the day as families gathered in a spooky celebration of community. Ware said that PIA is already thinking about how to improve the event for next year, and she encourages people to contact the tribe if they have ideas for any future events.
