Living on the Outer Banks “requires you to be very much in touch with weather and Mother Nature,” says commercial fisherman Vince O’Neal.
The lifelong Ocracoke resident and owner of the Pony Island Restaurant told Coastal Review recently that his family has been on the barrier island, which is only accessible by boat or plane, for generations.
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Many of the first settlers on the coast were watermen and what they did that day “depended on the weather and the hand they were dealt.” The velocity and the direction of the wind and tides determined if you were going on the water or if you were going to spend the day working on nets, boats, gear, or your hunting rig of decoys.
“Waterfowling was a big part of life on the Outer Banks as a way of income and for food on the table,” O’Neal said, as much as hand carving was in a waterfowler’s life.
“Growing up on Ocracoke Island as a kid, you were exposed to the natives making decoys all around the island,” O’Neal said, with some working in their backyard sheds and others carving or whittling while hanging out at the local stores or other gathering places.
“By the time that I came along,” O’Neal added, many of the old-time carvers were making decoys for the tourist trade versus using them as working decoys.
To keep the village’s decoy carving traditions alive, he and a group of other carvers formed the Ocracoke Island Decoy Carvers Guild in January 2018 with the goal to “preserve, promote and carry on” the village’s waterfowl carving heritage, according to its Facebook.
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That year, the guild hosted its first Waterfowl Festival and are carrying on that success. The organization is readying for its sixth festival, which has been expanded to two days this year, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, April 20, and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, April 21, in the Ocracoke School gym.
There is no charge to attend the festival that will feature dozens of booths featuring carvers, collectors, exhibitors and demonstrations from North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware.
New this year will be a fish fry hosted by Ocracoke Seafood Co. starting at 11 a.m. Saturday, April 20, and a bake sale with baked goodies and treats, including Ocracoke fig cake. Saturday events include a decoy head carving competition at 1 p.m. and a silent auction that ends at 3 p.m.
O’Neal, who is this year’s featured carver for the festival, explained that the methods of carving have been passed down through the generations and continue today.
“It is important that crafts such as this be preserved and taught to the younger islanders as it is part of their heritage, history and livelihoods,” he said.
Guild President John Simpson, who also grew up on the island, told Coastal Review that the festival is for all ages. Last year they had around 800 visitors attend.
As of Monday, Simpson said there were 27 different carvers, vendors and other artisans signed up to have a booth at the festival. Simpson is asking anyone who wants to be a vendor to let him know by April 14 for logistical purposes. Vendors can secure a table at $75 for both days.
He mentioned that in addition to the bake sale, there will be merchandise like T-shirts and sweatshirts, and a raffle on Saturday.
First place for the raffle is the decoy featured on the poster and shirts. O’Neal created that decoy in his role as the festival’s featured carver.
Recent organization, old tradition
Simpson said that the movement behind establishing a guild began several years ago. The carving tradition can be found generations deep in Outer Banks communities and especially in Ocracoke.
“There’s a lot of decoy makers,” Simpson explained, adding that one of his distant family members, Gary Bragg, who was alive 1881 to 1954, was a well-known carver on the island who “got a little bit of notoriety.”
Simpson said that he and some of his former classmates had been talking for a while about holding a festival like the Core Sound Decoy Carvers Guild’s festival held the first weekend of December on Harkers Island, a Down East Carteret County community.
So, Simpson, Vince O’Neal, his brother Dave O’Neal, and Scotty Robinson met in a friend’s living room in December 2017 and formed the Ocracoke Island Decoy Carvers Guild. “The first meeting we ever had was in January of 2018,” and the group continues to meet the first Thursday of the month.
Simpson said they started the guild to promote Ocracoke’s heritage and the tradition of decoy carving as art.
“We all enjoy it, all of us that are on board,” Simpson said. “We all love it. We’re trying to promote it, and especially get the younger folks involved because it is a dying art. As much as I hate to say it, it is a dying art.”
“We made it simple. Anybody could join,” Simpson said of the guild.
When the group was establishing guidelines, they also decided to have a festival. “We scrambled around and did our first festival that year, 2018, on the third weekend in April,” Simpson said, and the group has tried to keep it that same weekend.
In April 2018 and 2019, the festival was at the school, and in 2020, they had to cancel the festival because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Because Hurricane Dorian in late 2019 destroyed the school, the festival was held at Berkley Barn outdoor pavilion in 2021, 2022 and 2023.
Simpson said the festival is returning to the school now that it has reopened because the event is for the students and the school. The guild offers scholarships to graduating students from Ocracoke School.
Simpson urged those who want to attend to go ahead and line up their lodging, which fills up quickly, and make sure to reserve a spot on the North Carolina Department of Transportation ferry to Ocracoke from either Cedar Island or Swan Quarter.
With parking being limited at Ocracoke School, there will be a shuttle to transport visitors from the National Park Service parking lot by the ferry terminal to the school during show hours.
