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”. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Munger Trail - Willow River to Moose Lake

Image
The Willard Munger Trail - named for one of the environmental heroes of MN is our neighborhood bike trail and the place I get my biking exercise and conditioning.  I thought it would be good to share some of its highlights and pleasures.  So here is a look at the trail and what I enjoy. The small towns that prospered during the days when the trail was a railroad track and the country moved by Steam Engine are just a shadow of what they used to be, but that shadow is filled with surprises and fun places to explore if you give yourself the time to engage in the setting, as well as the peddling.  Willow River is our little home town and the Mercantile is over 100 years old and still meets many of our needs.  It is a place for refreshments and Peggy Sue's is a local restaurant that makes a great lunch or dinner stop. There is also a local park that provides you with a sense of the RR past. The trail is very straight like most RR grades and lacks hills except between Rutledg
Read more

Sense of Place

Image
GOING NATURE’S WAY By Kate Crowley I am intrigued by the idea of Sense of Place; to feel completely ‘at home’ in one particular place.  I have read that people who grow up on the Great Plains feel claustrophobic when they are in forested environments and in reverse,  people who have grown up surrounded by forest find the openness of the plains unnerving, with nothing to break the view to the horizon. I grew up in the city, but the Minnehaha Creek and Parkway were just two blocks away and I spent countless hours playing and exploring there.  The city lakes were within biking distance. The Mississippi River was just blocks away from the apartment where I lived the first four years of my life.  When I was 36 I married Mike and moved to our current home and it was perfect.  When my dad first visited us in our new home, he said, “Kate must think she’s died and gone to heaven”.  This is where I am supposed to be.  Scientists who have studied the evolution of humanity have proposed
Read more

Rain threatens birds

Image
WINGIN’ IT By Kate Crowley As the floodwaters recede, a stunned and relieved populace can finally stop holding their collective breath. Throughout southern Carlton County and all of Pine County there is a sense of disbelief that only four years after a major flood event, it has happened again.  At our home we measured over 8” of rain in less than 24 hours. This is what the word deluge was meant to describe. Others said it felt like they were in the middle of a monsoon. Thankfully there was no loss of life in our region, but property damage and loss was significant for people who have in some cases finally recovered and remodeled after the flood of 2012, which was said to be a once in 100 years flood when 8 to 10 inches of rain were spread over three days. Here in Willow River, there was fear that the small dam holding back the waters of the river would fail, with catastrophic results. Roads throughout the two counties (and into Wisconsin) were hard hit and the cost to repair
Read more