Past Event Relating to Current Event: Week 4

The Rendezvous

Current Event

• The current event I choose is the rendezvous. Every year at the first weekend in October we celebrate the Rendezvous at Bancroft Bay Park. This shows us how they lived way back in time. On education days, there are different stations for the schools to go too. They show you different things on how they lived in the past. Their food they ate, the skins they used, how they made things such as rope, how they used sports such as the tomahawks. They also have something called traders row which is where they sell there goods and trade things with other people.

Past Event

• Rendezvous is a French word meaning a predetermined place and time for meeting. It had much greater meaning to the trappers and traders of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. While the English and even the Spanish were involved in fur trade, the French held the most influence over that industry. It was an opportunity for the trappers to meet the trader or sutler and exchange furs for supplies, trade items, whiskey, and sometimes gold. Whether the trappers worked independently or with a team, the rendezvous was more than a business market; it was the social event of the season. Partaking of libations, gambling, story swapping, and spirited competitions along with singing and dancing were the norm for a week-long rambunctious time called the rendezvous.

How It Relates

• Today many different states and places celebrate the Rendezvous. It is a blast from the past on how people lived way back then. I visited there this past weekend and at one of the stations we were shown how a lady from Scotland ate. She had seaweed, oats and many other things that we wouldn’t eat today. I think it is very interesting. Back in the centuries they traded there stuff and we were also shown what the furs looked like and how they traded. Its kind of like the same thing that went on way back when, but it is just more modern people. They still where somewhat the same kind of clothing too.

How could the past event have ended differently to make the current event not happen?

• If we would have never had trade way back when, we wouldn’t be able to celebrate today the days they spent back then. We still do the trading but I’m sure there different things and I don’t think its as dramatic as it was back in the centuries.