September 22, 2004

Festival living history lesson

1,400 students attend Heritage Festival held along Boardman River

By Carol South
Herald contributing writer

       The heat, sweat and dust did not dent       "Where's your microwave?"
      Laying out the realities of pioneer kitchens and lives was just one of the goals of the Ninth Annual Heritage Festival, held Friday and Saturday at Hannah Park in Traverse City.
      More than 1,400 fourth grade students from 31 area schools descended on the park Friday, rotating among ten historical displays. Every elementary school in the Traverse City Area Public Schools district sent students as well as school districts including Kalkaska, Alba, Frankfort, Elk Rapids and Northport. In addition, homeschool students and students from area private schools attended the event.
      The displays included a Metis camp, homemaking skills, music, maritime history and a Civil War battlefield hospital. Civil war reenactors from the Lakeshore Tigers, representing Company A of the 26th Michigan, recreated a recruiting station and demonstrated battle techniques and equipment as well as living conditions of the soldiers.
      Then there was the pioneer kitchen, complete with a massive wood stove hauled to the park every year for the event. The six-burner stove, including a hot-water reservoir and an oven, served as the heart of the pioneer family's existence, explained Helen Vogel of Traverse City. She told the students that it would have been their jobs to haul wood and water for the family, just a few of the many chores pioneer children their age handled.
      And unlike quick-and-easy microwaves of the modern era, baking in a wood-fueled oven required fortitude and judgment.
      "Old recipes just told you a 'hot oven' or a 'slow oven' and how long you could keep your hand in told you how hot the oven was," she told the children.
      The pioneer kitchen display also outlined what pioneers ate, where they obtained their food - usually through hunting, gathering or cultivation - and how they preserved it in an era of no refrigeration.
      "Everything was fresh, you didn't buy much from the store," Vogel said.
      Emily Hendry, a fourth-grade student at Westwoods Elementary School, had never heard of the Metis before and also enjoyed the presentation on the pioneer kitchen. She was intrigued by how family members and communities all pitched in to survive during pioneer times.
      "I think it is nice how they all helped each other in the olden days," she said. "But I wouldn't want to live back then, not really want to wear dresses every day."
      The Heritage Festival was open to the public on Saturday and drew 400 people on a day that also featured a World War II hospital tent as well as a Native American Art Show.
      Over the two days of the festival, more than 100 people in costume presented historical information. In addition, 27 volunteer guides, many in historical costume, kept school groups on schedule on Friday.
      Ann Hoopfer, the coordinator of the event, said that the format of the festival for the schoolchildren changed this year to group presentations. Classes stayed at each station for 15 minutes, then a bell rang prompting everyone to move to another station. Some of the presenters suggested this format from their experiences at other historical festivals around the state.
      "There wasn't as much hands-on but there was a much more organized presentation," said Hoopfer, noting that teacher feedback in part created the change. "In past years, when the children went around in small groups with an adult, the teachers found when they got back to the classroom there wasn't a common experience."
      "Then the presenters said that in the past they watched the little groups of students come and within 30 seconds they were gone," she added.
      Holding the Heritage Festival at the beginning of the school year gives fourth grade teachers a rich store of experience to draw on all year.
      "It's nice to have it at the beginning of the year because when we go back to school they will be doing some writing about their experiences," said Mary Jeffrey, a fourth-grade teacher from Westwoods Elementary School. "Then it is fodder for the whole school year that we can come back to and they will remember what they saw."