August 2016 Letter
FromOur Clann Cadet
Dear Clann of the Wolf,
My husband, George, our friend Jake, and I enjoyed our trip to Colorado to the Rocky Mountain National Rendezvous (RMNR). Although I did not encounter any members of Clann of the Wolf, I did talk to several people who had heard of us. The Scottish Games that were held were unisex – men and women competing against each other, although it was more men than women. I recruited just a bit for Clann of the Wolf, so we will see if there are any takers on the flyers I gave out.
We attended several seminars while we were there. I enjoyed the lucet seminar, the card-weaving, aka tablet-weaving, seminar, some cooking seminars and the 18th century Scottish Clothing of Women. A Scottish man actually presented it and I did learn some new things. I did not know what a tonnag (a shawl, usually tartan) was until he told me and showed a sample. He showed us a recreation of a bog coat. The concept for this coat is over 4000 years old, tracing back to the Bronze Age. The remnants of this garment were found in a peat bog in Denmark, preserved all those years in ideal climatic conditions on the body of an ancient man. Carbon dating pinpointed the age, and it is called the bog coat because of the location of the discovery. It looks easy to make and it is still fashionable today. Of course, I took lots of pictures of his samples.
The weather out there relieved our bodies of the heat that everyone else was experiencing in July. Most of the time here in the South we have hot bodies (joke --heh, heh!) but not in Colorado. Temperatures were pleasant in the 70s and 80s in the daytime and dropped to the low 40s and 50s at night. Of course, we were at 10,000 feet altitude (How do I know this? I took my weather station and my GPS with me).
We were out of cell range on the way to the site and at the site. Mountains blocked any cell towers that might have been available. The scenery was gorgeous, and the rendezvous site was well-placed to take advantage of it. I did not mind that I was definitely off-grid. The family back home knew we would be unavailable except for the emergency number of the county sheriff’s office.
Horse-drawn wagons delivered ice and water daily and also picked up trash. There were a lot of horses and dogs at this rendezvous, which was a different but pleasant experience for me. The feel of the rendezvous was definitely Western, but there were some Colonials like us there. Of course, we were Scottish on Scottish day. We even bumped into some people whom we already knew. We also made friends with others from different parts of the country.
The lack of humidity stimulated our thirst and we drank lots and lots of water. No soft drinks, just water. I took water enhancers to flavor my water and used up most of them. I actually felt like I was finally drinking the amount of water that health professionals encourage us to drink on a daily basis anyway. Also, lip balm was our good friend during our stay out there. Even with all the water, our skin and lips dried out. One good thing was that any perspiration on our bodies immediately dried up. We don’t know if we ever sweated or not.
The dust blew in the constant wind and got all over everything. Since we were encouraged to conserve water, we used baby wipes for daily cleansing. It was amazing to see how much dust we collected on our skin. Dust even blew through fabric and got into things we had not even opened, like my cloth bag of clothes. When we brought the truck into camp at the end of our stay, it was covered in a very fine tan dust. Our friend Jake, who had traveled with us and was originally from Colorado, joked that his family had always called it a “clean dust.”
It had taken three hard days of driving to get to the rendezvous site so we decided to take our time returning home. We stopped to see three sites. Our first site was the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. It was not too far from the RMNR so we cruised through before we left the area. An amazing and little-known park, it is worth the visit. The canyon is deep and sheer. We stopped at the Visitor Center, looked at the incredible beauty and depth of the canyon, drove through the park, and then moved on. The second site was Bent’s Old Fort National Historic Site near La Junta, Colorado. The site has done a fine job of recreating what I think the feel of the original fort must have been like. I was told that they do have a living history event during the year sometime. If it were closer, I would love to take part in that. The third site was Washita Battlefield National Historic Site. This was sad. It was more of a massacre of Indians by General Custer than an actual battle. Almost a harbinger of General Custer’s attempt at Little Big Horn.
I will be unable to attend the next Clann of the Wolf event in Olcott, New York, because I have a conflict. We will be celebrating a special family birthday on September 17. My husband, George, will be 60 years old so we are having a big “To-Do,” as my mother used to say. I really enjoyed last year’s Celtic Heritage Festival in Olcott and I do plan to attend next year, 2017. However, sometimes life hands us conflicts and we just have to choose one or the other. I love Clann of the Wolf, but, I admit, I love my husband more.
Please share your adventures in living history, rendezvous, and especially Scottish events with us by writing to Dan Morris, our newsletter editor, contact information available in this newsletter. If you have a little to a lot of knowledge you want to share, do that also. Questions? Send them in and maybe someone can answer them.
Until next time,
Your cadet,
Patti Strickland