As we all know 2020-2021, the past two yeas, gathering in groups has been an issue. This may keep up into 2022 but many of us have adapted while others fight it. Not my place nor the place of this blog to talk much more about people's reactions to the pandemic. It's up to the indvidual to be responsible for themselves... and don't get none of it on me.
Before the pandemic Timberhaven was invovled in many events and partnerships with other groups. 2019 was very busy for us.
April 2019 was Viking Picnic - Timberhaven's annual spring gathering. We get dressed up in any new kit we made or bought over the winter, gather at a public park (rain or shine) and have a nice lunch with period to semi period foods.
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| Faster! Award winning David-Douglas high school marching band is right behind us! They want my pink breeches!! |
Then we had Midsummer Festival, Nordic Northwest's annual (50+ years now) Spring Scandinavian festival. We were invited to display our wares and teach people about early-medieval Scandinavian culture. Our "booth" was very well attended.
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| I promise, I'm wearing the pink breeches... and have flowers in my hair. |
End of June some of us made it out to Northwest Viking Alliance's annual Althing. I taught wilderness basics from the modern perspective of bushcraft, lead a hike, and then there was a feast of epic proportions.
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| Rollo's "river camp" set up... and a table that was looted! |
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| Guess what? Pink breeches. |
The rest of summer we had off until October when we had Timberhaven's annual "Fall-Thing". I did not attend in 2019 but other members did.
We then rounded out the year with Nordic Northwest's big annual Scanfair. We had a booth demonstrating crafts and history as well as took the stage for what we call "Viking Fashion Show" where I MC'ed and Timberhaven members demonstrated mutliple outfits representing the three economic statuses. The fashion show draws about 80 watchers and in 2019 I had kept track of our booth's interactions with public in the two (8 hour) days of the fair and we had over 1000.
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| All them sucker MCs watch me spit fire.. and wear pink breeches. |
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| Day 2 of Scanfair I took off the pink breeches and found both Santa and Joulupukki. |
As you can tell, my favorite pants to wear in 2019 were my pink "high breeches" which I still love but the past few years found me in a tighter fitting hose.
Intersperesed between these major events were meetings, meet and greets, craft gatherings, short hikes ... I was attempting to set precedent for us to appear in kit in public spaces for exposure. All the while we were cultivating a relationship with Nordic Northwest as they had started to pay us for our appearances.
As mentioned 2020 and 2021 happened and now we are going into 2022 with a little less happening but things still happening. The difference now is many of us are better equipped and capable of dealing with certain situations and being in public. That said we are still going to be careful and we are not diving face first into seas of people anytime soon.
So, stick around... Hold Fast as we said in the Navy... we have things planned and hope to see many of you soon.
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