Two of Three Days Finished on Opening Long Weekend at Fort Ed
Saturday and Sunday finished at the Fort, now just Monday to go... Non-Canadians may not know this, but in Canada this weekend in may is Victoria Day, which commemorates Queen Victoria's birthday... which isn't celebrated in England, as I understand it. Still, a long weekend for us! That means that Monday is also a grand celebration. This is the perfect weekend to open up the park! The last two days have been wonderful: busy, but exhilarating. I was running around training others as a Métis country wifet on Saturday, but today I was in Rowand House as Nancy Harriott née Rowand. What happened today to make me so happy?
Still no photographs of myself to show you yet, but I really do love the fancy Rowand daughter dress. People treat you differently when you wear it. Yes, kids are a little bit more intimidated because you are wearing dark clothing and look a little bit more severe, but I find that adults treat you with more respect and as you more intelligent questions. I've also found that I speak differently, with better diction and enunciation... and speak a bit more softly and with reserve when I'm Nancy than when I'm Anne-Marie the generic country wife. It makes me feel... respectable, more like a lady, etc. On a slightly separate note, I'm still getting used to the limitations of my movement in the dress, so I have to be careful not to lean down in a certain way to, say, pick up a dropped knitting needle or to retie my moccasin laces, lest I pop one of the dozens of snaps or buttons holding the back of my dress closed. Note to self: acquire better posture in everyday movement.
My hairstyle: I did do ringlettes today! (A lot of the research I've done emphasizes how popular ringlettes were in this decade.) I put my hair in rags last night, and with the aid of copious amounts of hairspray I did manage to get them to hold for most of the day! It was a bit raggetty towards closing because I'd taken my bonnet on and off a lot, disturbing the ringlettes, but they held up fairly well!
Just as the heat of the day was getting a bit oppressive and drinking lots of water and sitting by open windows wasn't enough, there was a brief and well-timed rainshower which cooled everything off for an hour or so. Thank you, Mother Nature!
One of the Neils (there are two of them in the fort this year) was playing the Chief Steward (kind of like a fur trade butler, but with more duties, including watching over the rum store) in the kitchen and didn't want to just pretend to do stuff... he wanted to actually do stuff. So he made me tea! :D I got to sit at the lady's dining table and drink tea for about half an hour. I pulled out the chairs opposite me and invited people to sit and chat. I spoke a lot about women's fashion, the Rowand family, the house, etc. Very fun, very good, friendly people to speak with.
My good friend Yan visited me with her boyfriend! I interpreted history at them for twenty minutes or so, and they asked very intelligent questions. :) It's always good to have an appreciative audience. I think that their friend took a photo of me with them, so maybe I can chase him down to get a photograph of myself as Nancy to show you all?
Speaking of which, I had a lot of really good visitors today. I really like it when they stay and talk for more than five minutes, so you can have a true rapport with them and feel that they came away with more than "oh, so this isn't a military fort. And the original site of the buildings was across the river." I had a wonderful Bulgarian woman, a family from India (their like six year old was so precocious and asking so many questions about horses in the fort that even adults don't think to ask, like what do we do with them in the wintertime!), a few different married couples who stayed and chatted with me while it was raining... and this amazing group of four francophone Africans. Only one spoke a basic amount of English, and when I saw he was struggling to translate for the rest, I switched to French.
You see, I don't like immediately switching to French as soon as I detect a French accent. I've been to French countries and generally when I'm there I want to work on my language skills. I find it arrogant when people switch right away, like they're saying "My English is better than your French, stop butchering my language." But if one member of the group has worse English than the others, or if they're really struggling, or if there are children who may still be monolingual, I find many really like that I can interpret to them in French. :)
Anyway, this family was really happy to find someone who could speak French. They asked many questions about the whole fort, not just Rowand House. I really liked them. They asked for my character's name afterwards, and as he stood up to leave the older gentleman who'd asked most of the questions asked me if it was appropriate to kiss my hand in this era. I told him I was unsure (I suspect no, but I'll look it up). However, I told him he could if he wanted to. He did, and I thought it was very sweet. The others, men and women, shook my hand and thanked me for speaking with them. :) I came away with a really positive feeling afterwards.
Now, I think that I'm going to finish with a little fun fact of the day each time I write a blog post about the fort. Think of them as teaser-trailers for when you, too, dear reader, will eventually visit me here at the park:
Rowand House in January
Winter at Fort Edmonton III by ~Beboots on deviantART
Fun Fort Fact #1: The Rowand House was the largest wooden structure on the Western prairies in the 1840s, and one of the only ones to have glass windows. The glass itself was very cheaply made. If you look at them closely, you can see the imprint of the slate that the molten glass was poured onto. It was the sort of used in storefronts in London at the time, but it was getting it this far into the West that made it expensive at the time. There are hundreds of these tiny panes in the house, and getting them here intact by York Boat was a huge challenge. In fact, they were shipped in giant barrels of molasses so they wouldn't shift around as much as they were transported. Still, they shatter quite easily, as in high winds. Our reproduction windows are made in the same way, and we always have to replace a pane or two. Because this glass isn't insulated, it's one of the reasons that the house is notoriously hard to heat in the wintertime (in addition to the high ceilings and the many large rooms), contributing to it's nickname, "Rowand's Folly". (As in, man, Rowand was silly to build such a large building.)
Still no photographs of myself to show you yet, but I really do love the fancy Rowand daughter dress. People treat you differently when you wear it. Yes, kids are a little bit more intimidated because you are wearing dark clothing and look a little bit more severe, but I find that adults treat you with more respect and as you more intelligent questions. I've also found that I speak differently, with better diction and enunciation... and speak a bit more softly and with reserve when I'm Nancy than when I'm Anne-Marie the generic country wife. It makes me feel... respectable, more like a lady, etc. On a slightly separate note, I'm still getting used to the limitations of my movement in the dress, so I have to be careful not to lean down in a certain way to, say, pick up a dropped knitting needle or to retie my moccasin laces, lest I pop one of the dozens of snaps or buttons holding the back of my dress closed. Note to self: acquire better posture in everyday movement.
My hairstyle: I did do ringlettes today! (A lot of the research I've done emphasizes how popular ringlettes were in this decade.) I put my hair in rags last night, and with the aid of copious amounts of hairspray I did manage to get them to hold for most of the day! It was a bit raggetty towards closing because I'd taken my bonnet on and off a lot, disturbing the ringlettes, but they held up fairly well!
Just as the heat of the day was getting a bit oppressive and drinking lots of water and sitting by open windows wasn't enough, there was a brief and well-timed rainshower which cooled everything off for an hour or so. Thank you, Mother Nature!
One of the Neils (there are two of them in the fort this year) was playing the Chief Steward (kind of like a fur trade butler, but with more duties, including watching over the rum store) in the kitchen and didn't want to just pretend to do stuff... he wanted to actually do stuff. So he made me tea! :D I got to sit at the lady's dining table and drink tea for about half an hour. I pulled out the chairs opposite me and invited people to sit and chat. I spoke a lot about women's fashion, the Rowand family, the house, etc. Very fun, very good, friendly people to speak with.
My good friend Yan visited me with her boyfriend! I interpreted history at them for twenty minutes or so, and they asked very intelligent questions. :) It's always good to have an appreciative audience. I think that their friend took a photo of me with them, so maybe I can chase him down to get a photograph of myself as Nancy to show you all?
Speaking of which, I had a lot of really good visitors today. I really like it when they stay and talk for more than five minutes, so you can have a true rapport with them and feel that they came away with more than "oh, so this isn't a military fort. And the original site of the buildings was across the river." I had a wonderful Bulgarian woman, a family from India (their like six year old was so precocious and asking so many questions about horses in the fort that even adults don't think to ask, like what do we do with them in the wintertime!), a few different married couples who stayed and chatted with me while it was raining... and this amazing group of four francophone Africans. Only one spoke a basic amount of English, and when I saw he was struggling to translate for the rest, I switched to French.
You see, I don't like immediately switching to French as soon as I detect a French accent. I've been to French countries and generally when I'm there I want to work on my language skills. I find it arrogant when people switch right away, like they're saying "My English is better than your French, stop butchering my language." But if one member of the group has worse English than the others, or if they're really struggling, or if there are children who may still be monolingual, I find many really like that I can interpret to them in French. :)
Anyway, this family was really happy to find someone who could speak French. They asked many questions about the whole fort, not just Rowand House. I really liked them. They asked for my character's name afterwards, and as he stood up to leave the older gentleman who'd asked most of the questions asked me if it was appropriate to kiss my hand in this era. I told him I was unsure (I suspect no, but I'll look it up). However, I told him he could if he wanted to. He did, and I thought it was very sweet. The others, men and women, shook my hand and thanked me for speaking with them. :) I came away with a really positive feeling afterwards.
Now, I think that I'm going to finish with a little fun fact of the day each time I write a blog post about the fort. Think of them as teaser-trailers for when you, too, dear reader, will eventually visit me here at the park:
Rowand House in January
Winter at Fort Edmonton III by ~Beboots on deviantART
Fun Fort Fact #1: The Rowand House was the largest wooden structure on the Western prairies in the 1840s, and one of the only ones to have glass windows. The glass itself was very cheaply made. If you look at them closely, you can see the imprint of the slate that the molten glass was poured onto. It was the sort of used in storefronts in London at the time, but it was getting it this far into the West that made it expensive at the time. There are hundreds of these tiny panes in the house, and getting them here intact by York Boat was a huge challenge. In fact, they were shipped in giant barrels of molasses so they wouldn't shift around as much as they were transported. Still, they shatter quite easily, as in high winds. Our reproduction windows are made in the same way, and we always have to replace a pane or two. Because this glass isn't insulated, it's one of the reasons that the house is notoriously hard to heat in the wintertime (in addition to the high ceilings and the many large rooms), contributing to it's nickname, "Rowand's Folly". (As in, man, Rowand was silly to build such a large building.)