One weekend in early September (while Mike was at the Badger game in Corvallis), Eleanor, Sabina and I headed across the bridge to historical Fort Vancouver for "Night of the Shark." Fort Vancouver was the British fur-trapper trading hub for this area way back in the day before American settlers started coming in, then it was one form of settler and military outpost. Night of the Shark is a night-time reinactment of life in 1846 = an electricity free zone with kitchens that use giant wood fires, blacksmiths that use cool, firey blacksmith stuff and all of it is done by candle light and torches. It was so great! The night was cool and clear, and the kitchens were actually cooking so they were warm and smelled fantastic. The blacksmiths were actually at work so the shop was warm and smelling of hot steel. The volunteers were all in period dress and in character, as they were preparing to take in the refuges from the shipwrecked Shark downed near Astoria. I couldn't get good photos of the coolest of these night-happenings, but before the sun went down the girls and I milled about the Oregon Trail settlement camps outside the fort, where they got to do laundry and play with period toys.
This whole evening was well worth the time and the throwing off of our nighttime schedule. And, it was the final straw that launched our timeline project. Eleanor likes historical auto/biographies, fictional and non-fictional alike. From Oregon Trail diaries to Laura Ingalls to Johanna Reiss to Kit Kittredge. I keep trying to tie other events we learn about to the timeline that runs right through the people she knows through these autobiographies, so we finally put marker to butcher paper and laid it all out on the wall. We'll add as we go...
