Today I took the boys to the Pioneer Farm Museum and Ohop Indian Village in Eatonville Washington. What a great trip it was!
The first 1.5 hour guided tour takes you into a few different cabins, a barn, and a blacksmith shop. Each of the stops is brimming with authentic paraphernalia from the late 1800s and early 1900s and is configured to replicate how the homesteads were configured. The bathrooms were even outhouses! The boys churned butter, ground corn meal, jumped into a pile of hay, fed the animals, shaved wood, the list is endless! They even had the opportunity to heat up a horseshoe in hot coals and then pound it on anvil. It was truly amazing!
The next 1.5 hour guided tour is through the various seasonal shelters and activities of the Salish people of this region. I was amazed at all that can be done with a cedar tree! We learned how they took the inner bark in order to craft all kinds of supplies and even clothes. Once a cedar tree has had some of its inner bark taken, it can not have its inner bark harvested again for 80 years or it will die. We have some cat tails growing in our upper pond and I discovered they are good eatin' when they are green! It would also take approximately 2 years to create a canoe. They would fall the cedars by caking mud a few feet off the ground around the tree. They would then start the tree bottom on fire and then chip away the burnt wood and reignite it. This worked to help them fell very large cedars that would have been too difficult to cut down with the tools they had. They would then leave the tree to 'rot' on the fallen side for one year and then come back to it and slowly chisel out the rot and fashion the canoe. Amazing! The boys got to shoot a bow, play Salish children games, feel the pelts of the animals native to the area, play various drums and make jewelry.
It was a fascinating place and we all had a great time. I took some great pics but unfortunately all of them have my children in it and I'm funny about posting their pics on the web. But here's the museum's website to see some of the sights. If you're ever in this neck of the woods, a great place to visit, especially if you have kids! I think the amount of work the pioneer and Salish children had to do that was mentioned repeatedly was a bonus. ;^P
Friday, July 25, 2008
Pioneer Farm Museum and Ohop Indian Village
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2 comments:
How those people ever survived is beyond me..man were they patient and tough.
I love learning about History and the the most important lesson that I have learned, is that I am so glad that I wasn't around back then.
That sounds like a great museum because of all the interactive stuff...and I know what you mean about the kid's pics but,
I think that most of the pervs are too busy lurking on Facebook to bother with blogs anymore?
It is a great museum Donn! If you're ever down here, I bet you would enjoy it.
I know, the chances of them being visible is small but still makes me nervous. My picture of my dog is on the first page of returned results on Google images if you do a search on Selsun Blue lol!
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