Photo time!
Hello everyone! Remember how a month or so ago I posted a few photographs of myself in one of my fort costumes? It occurs to me that you guys never saw the second one! And then, I was sent a few photographs by an awesome retired couple from Saskatchewan.
You see, I was doing a train tour... wait, I should explain this better. Here is an explanatory map. You get on the train at the front end, and take this fully-functioning locomotive all the way BACK IN TIME to 1846. There, I meet you at the train platform and give you a short walking tour up the fort, telling you everything you need to know: no, this is not a military fort, BEAVER is popular, we get along really well with the natives, Cree & Blackfoot (to put it lightly) don't get alone, but we like to trade with everyone, check out our FUNCTIONING YORK BOAT!, and P.S., the railway doesn't arrive in Edmonton for another fifty or so years so ignore what you just did.
I also explain about the fort itself - when it was built, when it was torn down, when it was reconstructed (and why we didn't use the original wood). Also, why we portray the year 1846 and not a lovely round multiple of five like all the other streets. HINT: it involves warmongering in the United States, terrified British citizens, spies and other interesting things! And you thought Canadian history was boring.
Anyway, I speak about the fifth and final location of Fort Edmonton: the one that was in use for the longest, and the one we represent at the park. It used to be across the river from where it sits today, right on the Alberta Legislature grounds. Here is a shot of the fort in it's later years (after the walls were torn down), right before it's demolition, but after the legislature was completed. I tell people about how the fort had been abandoned for over forty years by the time the legislature, with it's dome and shining white marble, was completed in 1912. And then there's this THING (I gesture emphatically at the fort we walk past) sitting next to it: rotting, listing to the side, full of vermin and so on. So they tore it down. It was ruining all of the photographs of your lovely new legislature, what can you say?
And then I make this joke (which I stole from my fort husband, Will) and gesture: they put the rot and the vermin in the new legislature building. Ha ha ha... (and I make this really ironic laugh, to indicate to people that I'm not serious. I'm just waiting for the day when the Premier of Alberta or one of the MPs is in my audience... >_> )
About a month ago, that married couple from Saskatchewan took a few photographs of me during the tour, and they got THIS just as I made the joke! I look like a hula dancer, but I'm actually gesturing, indicating a "putting the vermin and rot in the legislature" motion.
They showed it to me on their camera afterwards and I was like MUST HAVE COPY. They agreed, and also took this other photograph of me in the courtyard of the fort, with Rowand House on the background to the right. (Yes, that is the PERSONAL RESIDENCE of the Chief Factor, and his family of four. That's it. One house.)
I should also mention that I'm wearing my "cold weather" version of this outfit, with the blanket. All native and Métis women living in the fort would be wearing a blanket like this and almost all times. It was an essential part of your outfit... but they're made of wool, and so we can get away with not wearing them when it's plus thirty degrees out. But towards autumn... You need it.
Also, you can see the fur press in the background, pointing towards my left shoulder! It's not a catapult, a sideways gallows, see-saw or a barbeque (we have gotten all of these answers and many others). You use it to make bales of fur. Like hay bales. But fur. :)
You see, I was doing a train tour... wait, I should explain this better. Here is an explanatory map. You get on the train at the front end, and take this fully-functioning locomotive all the way BACK IN TIME to 1846. There, I meet you at the train platform and give you a short walking tour up the fort, telling you everything you need to know: no, this is not a military fort, BEAVER is popular, we get along really well with the natives, Cree & Blackfoot (to put it lightly) don't get alone, but we like to trade with everyone, check out our FUNCTIONING YORK BOAT!, and P.S., the railway doesn't arrive in Edmonton for another fifty or so years so ignore what you just did.
I also explain about the fort itself - when it was built, when it was torn down, when it was reconstructed (and why we didn't use the original wood). Also, why we portray the year 1846 and not a lovely round multiple of five like all the other streets. HINT: it involves warmongering in the United States, terrified British citizens, spies and other interesting things! And you thought Canadian history was boring.
Anyway, I speak about the fifth and final location of Fort Edmonton: the one that was in use for the longest, and the one we represent at the park. It used to be across the river from where it sits today, right on the Alberta Legislature grounds. Here is a shot of the fort in it's later years (after the walls were torn down), right before it's demolition, but after the legislature was completed. I tell people about how the fort had been abandoned for over forty years by the time the legislature, with it's dome and shining white marble, was completed in 1912. And then there's this THING (I gesture emphatically at the fort we walk past) sitting next to it: rotting, listing to the side, full of vermin and so on. So they tore it down. It was ruining all of the photographs of your lovely new legislature, what can you say?
And then I make this joke (which I stole from my fort husband, Will) and gesture: they put the rot and the vermin in the new legislature building. Ha ha ha... (and I make this really ironic laugh, to indicate to people that I'm not serious. I'm just waiting for the day when the Premier of Alberta or one of the MPs is in my audience... >_> )
About a month ago, that married couple from Saskatchewan took a few photographs of me during the tour, and they got THIS just as I made the joke! I look like a hula dancer, but I'm actually gesturing, indicating a "putting the vermin and rot in the legislature" motion.
They showed it to me on their camera afterwards and I was like MUST HAVE COPY. They agreed, and also took this other photograph of me in the courtyard of the fort, with Rowand House on the background to the right. (Yes, that is the PERSONAL RESIDENCE of the Chief Factor, and his family of four. That's it. One house.)
I should also mention that I'm wearing my "cold weather" version of this outfit, with the blanket. All native and Métis women living in the fort would be wearing a blanket like this and almost all times. It was an essential part of your outfit... but they're made of wool, and so we can get away with not wearing them when it's plus thirty degrees out. But towards autumn... You need it.
Also, you can see the fur press in the background, pointing towards my left shoulder! It's not a catapult, a sideways gallows, see-saw or a barbeque (we have gotten all of these answers and many others). You use it to make bales of fur. Like hay bales. But fur. :)