Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com

Published - Saturday, July 19, 2008

Campers relive fur trade era at rendezvous weekend

By KJ LANG | La Crosse Tribune

Jack Larson works retail sales during the week.

But on rendezvous weekends, he’s Blueberry Jack, the flint knapper.

Under his canvas tent, he chips and scrapes away at stone to make arrowheads, tools and knives.

“It is a form of escape,” Larson said. “I really enjoy the people that like to learn these old skills.”

Larson and others at Pettibone Park this weekend are traveling back to 1840s fur-trading times for a rendezvous organized by the local Prairie La Crosse Long Rifles. It’s the 10th year the group has hosted the event at the site.

Participants cook over wood fires, sleep in canvas tents, wear buckskins and handmade clothing and live the life of the American frontier.

Visitors are invited to travel back in time along with them from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. today and Sunday.

Larson will demonstrate flint knapping; others will show different period skills. Anyone dressed in period clothing can participate in tomahawk and knife throwing, archery, shooting competitions and other games. The band Lock, Stock and Barrel will play Celtic music throughout the weekend.

Anyone can watch the activities — admission is $2, free for children younger than 12 — and merchants will sell crafts.

The best part of the rendezvous is the people, said Tammy Freehill, one of the campers.

“You see many of the same people at all the rendezvous, and you get to know them,” she said.

Participants can learn a little about what living in the mid-1800s was like, without such conveniences as television, cell phones and microwaves, said Jeff Schultz, leader — or booshway — of the rendezvous.

“You can’t have breakfast in an instant,” said Freehill.

Just making a meal involves chopping the wood, starting the fire, waiting for the coals to get hot and then starting to cook, she said.

Schultz’s 13-year-old daughter, Haley, said she has no problem doing away with all the modern technology and living the slower rendezvous style.

“It is peaceful, because you are just one with nature,” she said. “It’s fun to wear the clothes and meet all the people.”

KJ Lang can be reached at (608) 791-8226 or klang@lacrossetribune.com.