FESTIVAL OF THE VOYAGEUR







Our three grandsons stood transfixed with looks bordering on horror as the man used his sharp knife to skin a fox hanging from a metal post.  He was just one of many costumed re-enactors at the North West Fur Post in Pine City, MN this past weekend.  They were there to relive a time before the European settlers arrived in full force.

The Annual Festival of the Voyageur is a gathering of people who enjoy dressing up and living in the rustic manner of the late 17th Century.  In the field outside of the old (looking) Fort with its palisades is a realistic looking encampment of canvas wall tents, lean-to’s and teepees.  Adults and kids are dressed in period clothing and there is very much a feeling of time travel as you walk past the smoldering campfires with heavy cast iron pots hanging above them.  Many of the re-enactors are craftsmen and women, who make silver jewelry, clothing, wooden canoe paddles and other items from the past.   

The three boys had as much fun running up and down the steps at the corners of the fort and pretending to be fighting imaginary enemies, as they did wandering among the historical rooms and displays. 

The Fur Post, an official Minnesota Historical site has a beautiful Visitor Center with excellent displays that recount this period of our history.  You can spend as much time here as you can outdoors, but they complement each other and you don’t want to miss either. 
 
Their visitation season will end in October on the 29th, with an appropriately themed, “Mystery of the Fur Post”. 

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