Grand Portage / Rendevous Days

This weekend is the Rendezvous Days and Pow Wow up in Grand Portage at the 

National Historic Monument. The North West Company held their Rendezvous at Grand Portage. This was the time when furs from wintering posts, which reached into Canada, were delivered down the historic Grand Portage.

Voyageurs were French Canadian indentured servants had to be able to carry two 90 pound bundles of fur over portage, some carried up to four or five.

At the Historic Depot there are three log buildings, the canoe warehouse

 The Great Hall

 and Kitchen

Costumed Docents do demonstrations or talk about the history.

How to gauge the temperature of a stone oven?  Toss in flour, if it turns black the oven is too hot.  Wait 5 minutes or so and try again, the temperature is right when the flour turns golden brown.

At the Voyageur encampments, re-enactors from across the country and Canada gather to camp and challenge each other to games and skills from Grand Portage's past.

Watched this lady making a beaded band for her Moccasins, looked easier than I thought, want to try in my spare time if I ever have any!

I think I could sleep here

In conjunction with the Rendezvous days, the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa (Ojibwe) holds the Rendezvous Days Pow Wow.  There are ceremonial pow-wow dances.