2015 April Game Day Weekend

The following is transcribed from my field journal. There are typos, misspellings and editings as there would be for transcriptions of other period journals. This entry is from a historic game day weekend in April of 2015 at Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site. This was one of a series of monthly game days at the Fort.

Friday, April 24^th, 2015
2015 April Game Day Weekend

The girls and I arrived to the fort this evening and found Paul and Dave F. already there, their camp already made. Brandon arrived shortly after. With some assistance we got our camp made

and I got supper for the girls. It was good to be here. The evening meal consisted of meat, cheese and hard crackers.

Brandon arrived. He would be residing in the carpenter’s shack. The rest of the evening was spent in Paul’s tent, playing cribbage, enjoying some libations together, getting to know Ross, one of our new park staff, and just shooting the breeze.

Due to the long day I retired earlier than I normally do on an outing like this. Brynja was complaining about her ear and ended up snuggling in with me.

Saturday, April 25^th, 2015
2015 April Game Day Weekend
The night passed without major incident. Brynja did fidget throughout the night. Breakfast was made and Kim arrived to the fort shortly thereafter with Garrick.

Was able to spend time in the blacksmith shop today. Paul helped me cut a bunch of pieces of round stock and I made jig to help make some consistent chain links. I spent several hours working on forge welding the links. Still working on my technique. They aren’t the way I want them to be yet, however, they are greatly improved compared to the forge welding I was doing last year. I will have to finish up this chain later on. As I have all the stock cut for this project it will make things go more quickly later on.

The Signe, Brynja and Garrick wanted to take Paul, Brandon and me on a hike. So we went on a

hike. They would run ahead for a while and then come back as we walked along the trail. We were hiking along the edge of the hill and looking down to the river bottoms below. Depending on high the water would be later on we found a few possible locations to camp at some later time. The kids had a great time and it was a good time to just enjoy the imagery around us and talk. On the way back we paused at the pit saw that was used to cut large logs. Garrick entertain Paul and I with a story. Paul ended up carrying Garrick the rest of the way back into the fort.

Drizzle. It drizzled softly outside so we stayed mostly in the trade house, stoking the fire. Kim had brought along her 1830s coffee pot so I pulled aside a small pile of coals onto the hearth stones and she made some tea. It felt good on a cool drizzly evening like this. At this point Taylor and Sawyer had arrived as well. We enjoyed the rest of the evening playing cribbage and talking.

We put the kids down for the evening and enjoyed another hour or so talking to the light of the fire in the hearth of the trade house until retiring for the evening.

Sunday, April 26^th, 2015
2015 April Game Day Weekend
The night passed without incident. Kim made baked oatmeal at the hearth in the trade house. It’s one of my favorite meals.

We began to prepare our tent some for packing up later in the afternoon.

No time spent in the forge.

More of the crew arrived, including Ben, Amanda and Haans. Cribbage and draughts ensued.

For lunch Signe and Brynja helped Kim make two boiled “fig” puddings. Kim used raisins instead. They turned out very good.

A group of visitors wanted to get a picture of us in front of the Bourgeois house, so stood for a photo.

Shortly after we helped each other pack up our camps and headed out. It wasn’t a long weekend and the weather limited our activity somewhat, but it was a good weekend. We got to spend it together as a family with our friends.

-- Leifer