Early American history comes to life
Re-enactors gather at Minnesota’s Big Island Rendezvous
The life of a fur trapper was often lonely, working for months in isolation and perilous conditions in the wilderness.
But come summer, these rugged adventurers assembled to barter with fur companies and peddlers in rendezvous gatherings that brought together scores of frontiersmen, American Indians and others for trading, athletic and shooting competitions, music, storytelling, carousing and drinking.
“This was back when people on the frontier got together and traded and caught up on news of the past year,” said Perry Vining, a South Dakota native who has been coordinating re-enactments of the gatherings for decades. “It was an annual celebration. It wasn’t a hostile environment because these were compatible folks.”
The most famous of these rendezvous — which in some places created bustling, temporary small towns — were held in the Rocky Mountains in the first half of the 19th century. Similar conclaves occurred in the upper Midwest when voyageurs and fur companies came together to trade. One of them was on the St. Croix River in northwest Wisconsin where two competing firms set up camp at what is now known as the Forts Folle Avoine Historical Park in Danbury.
Come Oct. 5-8, at least 1,000 historical re-enactors will gather in Albert Lea, Minn. for the Big Island Rendezous, which usually attracts up to 3,000 school children the first two days and then another 10,000 visitors on Saturday and Sunday, said Vining, who has been running the event for more than three decades.
“It’s one of the biggest festivals of its kind in the Midwest,” said Vining, who began his career as a theater teacher and gallery owner. He organized his first event in the early 1970s in an effort to save South Dakota's Fort Sisseton, which was on the brink of being closed for lack of visitors.
“I’d been doing arts festivals for a long time before that,” he said. “So when officials from the South Dakota parks department asked me to do a rendezvous at Fort Sisseton, I agreed, even though I’d never done one before.”
It went so well that the park was saved. That rendezvous will soon celebrate its 40th anniversary. Vining then moved on to Minnesota, where he was recruited to run a similar gathering at Fort Ridgely, southwest of the Twin Cities, for several years.
That was such a success, he recalled, that in 1986 he was told he could pick any of Minnesota’s 60-plus parks to launch another rendezvous. He chose one in Albert Lea, at the intersection of Interstates 90 and 35 about 100 miles south of Minneapolis.
“I went down, talked to the park managers and they said, yep, let’s do it,’” he said.
The rendezvous started out modestly, attracting 50 people the first year.
“And I don’t mean 50 tents,” he said with a chuckle. “That’s counting every man, woman and child that showed up. But it caught on and last year we had between 200 and 300 tents, more than 1,000 re-enactors and thousands more people coming to watch and participate in demonstrations.”
Vining said when he began running rendezvous re-enactments they were, for the most part, gatherings of blackpowder, muzzle-loading enthusiasts who camped out on weekends and competed in shooting events.
“But I wanted to expand it to get families and wives and kids involved and teach living history,” he said. “So I put that twist on it, added a lot more things to it, like food, music, stage entertainment and a variety of re-enactors, including Ben Franklin and President Abraham Lincoln.”
Neither Lincoln nor Franklin ever attended a real rendezvous, but Vining said they are two of the more popular additions he made to the gatherings over the years as he expanded it from the mountain men and voyageurs of the early 1800s.
“We go well beyond the fur trade,” he said. “We have a 1600s-era Native American camp with birch bark canoe and wigwams. We also have a cowboy segment. We go all the way up to the 1880s, too, with different segments set up in various areas of the park.”
Vining said he’s worked hard to get some of the best re-enactors he can find, ones who can relate to kids.
“Ben Franklin comes all the way from Tennessee and Abe, appropriately, lives in Springfield, Ill., and comes with his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln,” he said. “I try to get high quality re-enactors who will present good information in an entertaining way.
“History is not just dates and facts. It’s the social interaction between people and families. It’s about telling stories about how Native Americans and settlers survived in the middle of winter in this part of the world.
“That makes it a lot more interesting for kids and adults, too. Youngsters like learning how to start a fire with flint and steel, or seeing a blacksmith pounding out iron nails on a anvil to build a log cabin. That’s much more fun than memorizing what years a president was in office. I love seeing kids get excited about history. Often they want to know more.”
Vining said he spends months organizing the rendezvous and then spends the days of the festival wandering the grounds dressed as a gentlemen who might have lived 180 years ago.
“I don’t take on a specific role,” he said. “By the time the public part of the festival occurs, several thousands school kids will have been here. So my job is pretty much done. I’m just here to say hello and make sure things go smoothly. And that’s fine with me.”
More information: The Big Island Rendezvous is open to the public at 9 a.m. each day Oct. 7-8. It's held at Bancroft Bay Park in Albert Lea, Minn. Admission is $12 for an adult per day and $7 for a child ages 6-11. Families are $25. See
Getting there: Albert Lea is 330 miles west of Milwaukee via Interstates 94 and 90.