freshare.net
Lake of the Ozarks, Mo. – Meet America’s first Mountain Man and find out how high an anvil can fly at the 21st annual Osage River Mountain Man Rendezvous and Muzzleloader Shoot, Sept. 19-21. The popular event will be held at the Silver Star Campground (formerly American Legion Campground) below Bagnell Dam at Central Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks.
This authentic living-history re-enactment will bring together traders and trappers, gunsmiths, artisans and storytellers in a frontier encampment circa 1800-1840. Participants’ clothing, food, equipment, entertainment and lodging will faithfully depict the period.
Historical re-enactor Clint Winn of New Bloomfield, Mo., will portray John Colter, a member of Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery who stayed behind in the West when the Corps returned home in 1806. “Colter was the first white man to see Yellowstone. He lived there alone for 18 months,” Winn says. “Although there were European trappers and traders in the West, Colter was the first American Mountain Man. He later settled in New Haven, Missouri.” Winn has portrayed Colter at numerous festivals, conventions and schools throughout Missouri, Colorado, Oklahoma and beyond. He’ll present his John Colter character at the Mountain Man Rendezvous at noon and 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, and noon on Sunday.
Crowd-pleaser and World Anvil Shooting Champion Gay Wilkinson of Farmington, Mo., will be back to demonstrate his unique skills at 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. Anvil shooting consists of placing a large blacksmith’s anvil upside down on the ground, filling it with gunpowder, placing another anvil on top and lighting a line leading from the powder. The resulting boom supposedly can be heard many miles away.
“In the early 19th century, towns without cannons shot anvils as an early warning system to alert residents about an emergency or a gathering,” explains Geniece Tyler, festival co-chairman and owner of the Golden Door Motel in Osage Beach. “Gay shoots his anvil so high, sometimes up to 100 feet into the air – it’s just incredible that a heavy hunk of lead can fly like that.”
A third attraction will be re-enactors of the French Artillery at 10:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. “They add some real flair with their colorful outfits and their cannons. They don’t use cannonballs but instead use gunpowder in a can and that makes quite a big boom,” Tyler says.
The colorful Trader’s Row marketplace is another festival favorite, featuring a wide array of goods that a mountain man might have made or traded, including collectible guns and knives, woven blankets, fabric and clothing, beadwork, homemade soap and candles, leather goods, pottery and baskets, jams and jelly, arrowheads, pelts and much more. “You can find some very unique items here,” Tyler notes. “It’s certainly not your neighborhood mall.”
As in previous years, mountain men and women will compete for prizes in black powder shoots, tomahawk and knife throwing and fire-starting contests.
Tyler expects more than 100 participants and more than 3,000 visitors over the festival weekend. More than 1,000 students will attend the event at no charge on Friday. “Schools from all over the region bring their students here because it’s such a great learning experience,” she says.
Admission for the entire weekend will be $5 for adults; children age 15 and younger will be admitted free with a paid adult admission. The event will be open to the public from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, and 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Sunday.
“The Mountain Man Rendezvous is a great family event but also an important effort to keep alive this piece of American history that otherwise could just disappear,” Tyler says. “Everyone who participates does his or her best to be as authentic as possible. As you stroll through the area and see all the tents and lodges and people dressed in buckskin, smell the smoke from the campfires and hear the dulcimer and mandolin music in the background, it’s easy to believe you’ve been transported to another century.”
For more information contact the Lake Area Chamber of Commerce at 800-451-4117 or visit http://www.lakeareachamber.com. And to find out more about lodging, dining, shopping, attractions and activities at Central Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks, contact the Lake of the Ozarks Convention & Visitor Bureau at 800-FUN-LAKE (386-5253) or visit http://www.funlake.com.