LangleyAdvance Your community newspaper since 1931
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
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August 14th
Audited circulation: 40,026 – 24 pages
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Canoes bearing re-enactors of Fort Langley’s historic past arrived via the Fraser River for Brigade Days on Monday afternoon. Below, Jayden Lear, 3, checked out model trains at the B.C. Farm Machinery Museum.
Matthew Claxton/Langley Advance
History
Fur traders paddle out of past Fort Langley celebrated more than a century of history in its annual Brigade Days.
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Gord MacIntosh demonstrated muskets at the old fort.
In mid-1850s, one of the biggest days of the year in Fort Langley was the summer arrival of the fur brigade. Traders from the Interior would arrive by canoe, bringing furs and other goods traded with First Nations people. Since the 1980s, this event has been the centrepiece of the Brigade Days held at the Fort Langley National Historic Site. The canoes arrived on Monday afternoon, but for three days before that, period actors from the Lower Mainland and from Washington State were demonstrating everyday activities within the walls of the Fort itself. “Who would miss it?” said Heather Kibbey, who came up from her regular post as a re-enactor at Fort Nisqually, Wash.
Arts Alive! Saturday, August 17… 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
She was spinning wool at her station. Most everyday clothing was made locally at or near fur trading posts, Kibbey said. One of the important trading officials might order a suit from back home in England, but that could mean a wait of years. “You couldn’t import everything from Britain,” she said. Kids like Liam Saffold, two and a half, got to do thinks like help make a prodded rag rug. Re-enactor Marcy Lui explained that old, worn-out clothing wasn’t just thrown out, it was recycled into something useful. Kids and adults headed down to the bastion at the north end of the fort to see a demonstration of mid-century
firearms. Flintlock and percussion cap muskets were fired – blanks only – over the walls of the fort. Down the street at the B.C. Farm Machinery and Agriculture Museum, another era of history was being remembered by the Fraser Valley G Scale Friends, a club of model train enthusiasts. They set up a sizeable loop of track to show off their highly detailed models, which include those that run on electrical power, and some running on live steam. Duane Rose said the club members don’t often get a chance to set up their tracks and scenery for the public.
Local art of every stripe is showcased annually in a festive celebration of the arts in Downtown Langley City. This year, free ‘Goody Bags’ will be handed out to the first 500 people to show up at Art’s Alive!