Before Seabeck
Before you arrive and begin your Seabeck adventure, you’ll need some guidance on getting here and information on how to participate (to whatever degree you wish), which in some cases encourages prior preparation. We hope you’ll make Seabeck a participatory experience!
Getting to Seabeck
This topic is so important, we’ve given it its own page—click to read. Learn about driving and ferry options from British Columbia, Oregon, and the SeaTac airport and train station.
Conference Center Location
The Seabeck Conference Center is a warm and rustic getaway retreat center located at 13395 Seabeck Highway NW, in Seabeck, Washington (see the Bing map, Google map, or MapQuest map). The wooded conference grounds, next to a lagoon and a marina on Hood Canal, feature lovely views across the tidal water of the Olympic Mountains. Many of the facility’s accommodations are historic or relocated heritage houses. Traveling from Seattle to Seabeck takes about 75 minutes (about 70 miles) via Tacoma (no toll northbound; toll to cross the bridge southbound only), nearly two hours if you take the Seattle-to-Bremerton ferry (about 45 driving miles), or 90 minutes if you take the Seattle-to-Bainbridge ferry (about 50 driving miles). For our haiku retreat, we’ll be meeting in the new Pines buildng (which can hold 100+ people). For more information about the conference center, visit www.seabeck.org. Also, get an overview of the conference center by viewing the Seabeck campus map. If it’s necessary for you to contact the conference center, their phone number is 360-830-5010, but please note that the conference center does not handle our retreat reservations.
Shuttle, Bus, or Other Transportation
If you need transportation from the Seattle airport to the conference center, please let us know. Or contact www.kitsapairporter.com for shuttle details (phone 360-876-1737 or 800-562-7948). Contact Kitsap Airporter for prices. If you can get a ferry as a walk-on passenger from Seattle to Bainbridge Island, Kitsap Transit offers bus service from Bainbridge to Silverdale (near Seabeck), and we could most likely arrange to have someone pick you up in Silverdale (depending on timing), or you could use Uber of Lyft services. Also check out Yellow Cab of Kitsap County (phone 360-473-6996). Renting a car might be right for you, but you might not use the car at all for three days at the retreat (if you stay the entire time). See also the Seabeck Transportation page.
Weather
The weather can be cool while we’re at Seabeck. We had frost one morning during our first retreat in 2008 and again in 2021, but not other years, as far as we recall. But bring a jacket and a sweater, and perhaps an umbrella (see “What to Bring” below). For specific information about weather during the retreat date, visit these links just prior to your arrival:
Seabeck Weather Report: https://weather.com/weather/today/l/98380:4:US
Seabeck 10-Day Weather Forecast: https://weather.com/weather/tenday/l/Seabeck+WA+98380:4:US#/!
What to Bring
All bed linens and towels are provided (supplied once for the whole weekend). Please bring clothes for both warm and rainy weather. We’ve planned to have perfectly sunny skies, but you never know if you might need an umbrella and a rain jacket for one of our haiku walks. Make sure to bring a flashlight and perhaps a bathrobe (although all rooms in Pines have private bathrooms), and perhaps earplugs (if your roommate snores). Please bring haiku for round-robin readings, haiku handouts (see below) or other freebies to share, and items for the silent auction (see below), and perhaps bring an instrument or plan something else for our talent show (we usually have one). Bring your checkbook or cash to purchase books and silent auction items. Please also bring your haiku notebook and lots of creativity and enthusiasm. And while you’re at it, bring some poet friends, too!
Where to Go When You Arrive
Upon your arrival on Thursday, please register with our registrar in the lobby of the Historic Inn or the Meeting House (see campus map). Or on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, please register at our scheduled meeting room. We encourage you to arrive by the following times, depending on the day:
Thursday: Please arrive and register at the Historic Inn between 4:00 and 6:00 pm. If you come earlier in the afternoon, you can explore the waterfront or other parts of Seabeck. Dinner starts at 6:00 p.m. At 7:00 p.m. or later, please join us in the Pines building.
Friday: For day visitors, please arrive and register at 9:00 a.m. (Pines). If you are coming for the weekend, please arrive and register before dinner, which usually starts at 6:30 p.m. (half an hour later than usual on Friday only, but confirm on the schedule page). Check in with us at Pines if you arrive before dinner, or at dinner time come to the Historic Inn, where we’ll be eating at the dining hall.
Saturday: For day visitors, please arrive and register at 9:00 a.m. (Pines). If you can’t arrive by 9:00 a.m., please join us when you can.
Sunday: For day visitors, please arrive and register at 9:00 a.m. (Pines).
Name Tags
Be creative in making your own name tag. There’s no vote or prize for the best ones, but please do make your own name tag in a creative way. Click to see the first of many photos showing our 2010, 2011, and 2012 retreat name tags. Top these!
Haiku Handouts
As a special way to commemorate the weekend, we invite you to create a keepsake trifold haiku sheet (or something similar) with a selection of your haiku or senryu, whether recent poems or best-of selections. Please make at least 50 copies (okay, 60) to share with everyone present (we’ll let you know if attendance exceeds 50, which has usually happened from 2012 onwards, and we had a record number of 83 in 2018). At most retreats we have a special reading of poems from these handouts.
Silent Auction
If you’re willing to donate items for our silent auction, you’ll help us raise money to offset expenses. Books are welcome, but you don’t need to limit yourself to books (items don’t have to be haiku-related, either, but do make them of interest to fellow haiku poets). As a courtesy, please refrain from donating books by poets who are likely to be present and might be selling those books themselves. Also, if your donation does not sell, please take it home with you (though this rarely happens).
Book Fair
Have haiku books for sale or trade? If so, please bring them to display on our book table. Please price your books and indicate who should be paid for purchases. Please handle all sales directly. And don’t forget to bring cash or your checkbook to pay for books you want to buy! Or consider trading books if you can work that out.
Haiga Exhibit
Please bring copies of any haiga or photo-haiga (framed or unframed) that you’d like to display. Please note that you cannot hang them on the walls but can place them flat on tables or on table easels. For many years, the Haiga Adventure Study Group of Puget Sound Sumi Artists has staged a haiga exhibit in the dining hall and parts of our meeting space, and more recently just in our meeting spaces. This has been a wonderful way to show haiku and haiga to other conference attendees also present at Seabeck during our weekend retreat. We sometimes also do a slide show of haiga using a digital projector, so please bring some of your haiga in electronic form on a USB flash drive or in another format (check our schedule to see if that will happen this year). For more information about haiga, click here.
Talent Show
[Not happening in 2023] In 2012 we started a new tradition at Seabeck—a Saturday-night talent show. No haiku allowed—except for our “Haiku Sing-Off” (you’ll have to come and see how that works). We’ve had storytelling, magic tricks, Broadway show tunes, piano improvisations, tabla and wooden flutes, recitation of longer poems, a ukulele chorus, jokes, singalongs, dances, and other creative sharing. If you’d like to participate, please plan something you’d like to perform. It’s completely optional, but we invite your creative surprises. Juggling chainsaws? Bring it on!
Show and Tell
[Not happening in 2023] Remember show-and-tell from grade school? Back by popular demand, we’ll have another haiku show-and-tell session! If you want to participate (it’s optional), bring anything related to haiku to show and describe to the group. You could read a long poem that relates to haiku, or show a favorite book or photograph. A haiga? A doormat with a haiku printed on it? Something odd or amusing? It could be something you purchased or something you made. Use your creativity and imagination to bring something (or several things!) to stimulate our thinking about haiku.
Favorite Haiku Session
[Not happening in 2023] Our “Favorite Haiku” session is always popular. If you want to participate (it’s optional), please select a favorite haiku or senryu written by someone else, and come prepared to read that poem and speak appreciatively for two or three minutes about why the poem works for you. You could write out your remarks and read them to the group, or talk extemporaneously—it’s up to you! We hope this session will engage everyone, stimulate some critical thinking, and introduce us to new poems, whether classics that are good to be reminded of or highly personal poems that few of us know.
