I returned Sunday evening from an enjoyable 10 days at the Heffley Creek Rendezvous. In spite of the extreme fire hazard for the province, the area of the rendezvous was surprisingly green and we had short periods of rain on 3 of the 10 days. The air was fairly smoky for the first few days then the wind changed and the air was clear. I am posting a before and after photo to show the difference between smoky and clear.
the camp is divided into tin town and primitive with about 30 camps in primitive, spread over 5 to 10 acres and around 70 camps in the tin area. That is down about 30 camps from recent years, with at least a few of those camps absent because of asthma. We had 2 events per day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, covering all aspects of black powder shooting; muzzle loading rifle, muzzle loading handgun, primitive archery, cartridge and muzzle loading shotgun. One of the handgun targets involved sitting on a chair and shooting at a chicken gong. Purely in the interests of safety, the organizers of the event provided a non slip chair to sit on. The non slip portion featured screws pointing up through the seat of the chair :>)
Because it is spread out with lots of elbow room, its difficult to portray the primitive area, but I have one view of the lower end looking south east from my camp and another looking north more or less from the center of the area, at the upper camps. Once the rendezvous starts, vehicles are only allowed into primitive, to load or unload.
I didn't take any photos of the shooting because it was awkward to pack the camera plus shoot. I did get one shot of a perfect bullseye in one of the hawk and knife events.
The only trophy I won was the coveted dry ball bib which must be worn until the next person is awarded it; it obviously must be coveted because it was awarded every evening at council fire. In my case, I was experimenting to find the minimum charge necessary for shooting. That is my story and I am sticking to it :>)
the camp is divided into tin town and primitive with about 30 camps in primitive, spread over 5 to 10 acres and around 70 camps in the tin area. That is down about 30 camps from recent years, with at least a few of those camps absent because of asthma. We had 2 events per day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, covering all aspects of black powder shooting; muzzle loading rifle, muzzle loading handgun, primitive archery, cartridge and muzzle loading shotgun. One of the handgun targets involved sitting on a chair and shooting at a chicken gong. Purely in the interests of safety, the organizers of the event provided a non slip chair to sit on. The non slip portion featured screws pointing up through the seat of the chair :>)
Because it is spread out with lots of elbow room, its difficult to portray the primitive area, but I have one view of the lower end looking south east from my camp and another looking north more or less from the center of the area, at the upper camps. Once the rendezvous starts, vehicles are only allowed into primitive, to load or unload.
I didn't take any photos of the shooting because it was awkward to pack the camera plus shoot. I did get one shot of a perfect bullseye in one of the hawk and knife events.
The only trophy I won was the coveted dry ball bib which must be worn until the next person is awarded it; it obviously must be coveted because it was awarded every evening at council fire. In my case, I was experimenting to find the minimum charge necessary for shooting. That is my story and I am sticking to it :>)
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I wondered what the smoke would be like. Last time I was at Hefley, 5-6 years ago, there were over 100 primitive camps. Many of the early reenactors I know have passed or have health issues.
