The history of Pumpkin Island posted by Kevin Brown on the Facebook page: On the Fredericksburg Va Trails:
It started a few years ago when a young man named Ryan McGinnis put a whole bunch of carved and illuminated pumpkins out on the river rocks right before Halloween. He did this in homage to a similar tradition from his childhood home in Vermont. Unfortunately, a flood occurred the day after Ryan put out his pumpkins and they were swept away. Since Ryan’s effort, I’ve put a few pumpkins out on the river rocks over the past few years. This year, my Riverside Dr neighbor, Thomas Sandler and I came up with a grand idea to put a lot of pumpkins out in the middle of the river in homage to Ryan’s first effort. So we got 17 pumpkins of various sizes, wheelbarrowed them over to the riverside, put them in Tom’s kayak and 2 river rafts tied to the back. Tom kayaked with the load to the island in the middle of the river. I carefully waded across to meet him. And thus, Pumpkin Island was born. We planned this after seeing that no floods were forthcoming anytime soon, so we are hoping that Pumpkin Island will survive this year until Thanksgiving, when maybe the beaver and muskrats will get a fine holiday feast. Lastly, you will likely see this tradition continued in future years, in some way shape or form, maybe with more pumpkins if circumstances allow. Thanks for asking!
