Here’s the poster shared by the Elkton Community Education Center (also known as the butterfly place), whose staff puts on this excellent annual event in Elkton, Oregon, the small town where I went to school in the somewhat distant past. Just a few miles up the road from my great-great-grandmother Martha’s farm.
I’ll be at the event as usual with a booth, selling my two books, A Place of Her Own, a creative nonfiction account of Martha’s story, coming west over the Oregon Trail in 1850 and eventually purchasing that farm on her own, and The Shifting Winds, a novel about a young woman whose father brings their family west to Oregon in the 1840s, much to her displeasure. Both women face huge challenges on this formidable frontier.
The Fort Umpqua Days gathering offers folks a glimpse of what life was like for these pioneers and the American mountain men and British fur traders who came before them. Today’s fort was built as a replica of the original with considerable research for accuracy. Volunteers will be on hand to answer questions, and there will be plenty of fun activities for the kids, closing off each evening with a pageant that adds a bit of historical accuracy with a strong touch of humor.
Fort Umpqua Days will be back this year after two years off, and that seems worth a celebration.
It all begins on Saturday morning, September 3 at 10 o’clock at the Elkton Community Education Center, 15850 OR-38 W, Elkton, Oregon, west of town.
That’s by the popular Butterfly Pavilion. The fort lies just down the hill. It’s a two-day event from 10 to 4 on both Saturday and Sunday, plus evening performances of the annual “Echoes of The Umpqua Pageant.”
This Labor Day celebration has become a tradition in small-town Elkton, Oregon, home of the reconstructed Fort Umpqua, the southernmost outpost of the British Hudson’s Bay Company in the 1800s. It will be good to return to that tradition.
Locals and visitors gather on the weekend to enjoy a parade through downtown, a pie auction, BBQ, live music, tours of the wonderful Butterfly Pavilion, and more. I’ll be among the vendors up near the pavilion, where I’ll be selling my books, stories about Oregon’s dramatic history of those days–A Place of Her Own and The Shifting Winds.
From “The First Mountain Man” by Andy Thomas – with permission of the artist
Kids will find plenty of fun, including a voyageur expedition, to see what these fur traders did in the heyday of this fort.
My second book, The Shifting Winds, delves into this era with fictional mountain man Jake Johnston as a good friend of historical mountain man Joe Meek. Both came west to Oregon in the early 1840s after the beaver played out in the Rockies. Once in Oregon they wanted to help their fellow Americans claim the rich Oregon Territory, which was then jointly occupied by the US and Britain.
Folks who reconstructed Fort Umpqua worked diligently to maintain an authentic representation of the original, and people will be on site during the Labor Day event to answer questions.
Reenactors and blacksmiths often attend, showing their work to add more color, and they’re happy to offer information as well.
You might even find a mountain man or two.
InsideHudson’s Bay Company Store, Fort Umpqua
Remember Karen “Many Voices” Haas who was there for Fort Umpqua Days last time? I was so glad she showed me how she uses a drop spindle. It’s a device that was used for many centuries, millennia even. I have a character in my upcoming historical series spinning thread with a drop spindle some 3,500 years ago. After watching Karen I was better able to describe the process.
Karen using a drop spindle to spin thread, shown here at the fort with her husband Patrick, both in period dress.Outside Hudson’s Bay Company store, Fort UmpquaBack gate of Fort Umpqua from the hill above
