The Seaweed Harvesters' Festival

Created in the 1980s, the Seaweed Harvesters’ Festival is a cultural event held every summer in Plouguerneau by the volunteers of the Karreg Hir association. Free and open to all, it takes place on the dunes of Penn-Enez, at the port of Koréjou, and draws several thousand visitors each year, helping to keep the region’s maritime heritage alive.

The heart of the festival is a reconstruction of the work of the seaweed harvesters, both men and women, as it was practised between 1920 and 1950. Volunteers in period costume bring back to life the various stages of harvesting and processing the seaweed: cutting at sea and unloading from the association’s two seaweed sloops, the Fleur des Îles and the Karreg Hir, transporting the seaweed by cart or stretcher, then drying and burning it in the seaweed kilns.

Many activities are also offered to the public: exhibitions, talks, educational stands, tastings of local seaweed-based products. Music and dance are not forgotten either. Visitors can thus try their hand at the traditional sung dance of the coast: the round pagan!