Two different looks at the outdoors — a good opportunity for recreation and a tough way to make a living — will share the billing Saturday at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site.
Held on public lands throughout the country, National Get Outdoors Day will showcase fun and healthy outdoor activities from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
During the National Park Service’s annual Brigade Encampment, re-enactors will portray the return of the fur brigades to Fort Vancouver, illustrating how day-to-day survival skills of 1840s trappers are now recreational pursuits.
• Get Outdoors Day
Get Outdoors Day will bring more than 40 city, county, and federal land management agencies, nonprofits, and outdoor-based businesses together to introduce the public to the region’s national parks, forests and trails.
Hosting the event “allows us to partner with other national parks in the region,” Park Ranger Bobby Gutierrez said in a news release.
Rangers from Mount Rainier National Park, Nez Perce National Historical Park and Olympic National Park will share the opportunities for outdoor recreation in their parks.
Other Get Outdoors Day partners include the U.S. Forest Service, the city of Vancouver and Clark County.
• Brigade Encampment
The annual Brigade Encampment re-enacts the return of Hudson’s Bay Company fur brigades to Fort Vancouver. Costumed re-enactors will demonstrate cooking, crafts, games, dances, and music of the 1840s. There will be hands-on, family-friendly activities and black-powder demonstrations of replica 1840s weapons.
The encampment demonstrates the rugged lives of fur traders and their families. It also is a reminder that “not so long ago, camping was not a recreational activity, but rather an essential way of life,” Superintendent Tracy Fortmann said in the news release.
The Brigade Encampment will be 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the Great Meadow, north of East Fifth Street, across from Pearson Air Museum.
