Life was primitive along the Old Sauk Trail between 1650 and 1750. And several reenactors will be in Edwardsburg on Sat., Sept. 27, to recreate and demonstrate that with objects made, used, and traded along the historic wilderness route.

The Sauk Trail Festival: Echoes of Our Past is two weeks away and people who visit the Edwardsburg Area Historical Museum between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. that day can witness and learn many things firsthand, including construction techniques that were used to build houses.

For example, Neil Hassinger of Edwardsburg will have a mockup of two walls, showing home building techniques from the 1700s, using tools like hewing axes and giant chisels for chinking.

 Visitors also can see Lynn Christensen of Edwardsburg as a French woodworker, who makes spoons with shaving horses and drawknives, and refines ax and shovel handles or handles for scythes.

As people move amongst the booths and awnings in the museum’s backyard on Main Street, they may encounter reenactors like Mark Thomas of South Bend. Dressed as a French Voyageur from the 1600s, he will display a small version of the voyageur canoe. A large 35-foot voyageur canoe will be located along Pleasant Lake at Gunn Park where naturalists from the Sarett Nature Center of Benton Harbor will give people free rides to experience what water travel was like hundreds of years ago. Thomas can explain more about the canoe and display the types of goods that were traded…furs, and beads and blankets among them.

French soldiers occupied Fort St. Joseph in Niles at that time, actively trading in the wilderness with the Native Americans, as Western Michigan University History Instructor Erika Hartley will explain.

Hartley is the curatorial fellow, Niles History Center, and director of the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project that is ongoing each summer in Niles through WMU. Fort St. Joseph, she will relate, was a mission, garrison, and trading post complex occupied during the 1700s. By establishing the fort, the French aimed to secure the interior of the North American continent and increase commercial activity in the fur trade, she said.

Hartley will speak in the afternoon on the museum’s back deck on “Fort St. Joseph and Fur Trade.” (The 20-year-old deck was renovated especially for the festival with a grant from the Historical Society of Michigan, part of the America 250MI project, which focuses on celebrating Michigan’s participation in the nation’s upcoming 250^th birthday in 2026.)

Hartley will give brief overview of trade between the fort’s soldiers and the Native Americans, display artifacts recovered along the St. Joseph River in Niles and explain informational panels.

Depicting a French soldier, Joe Zdziebko of Osceola will explain from his booth how the fur trade benefited everyone. It was important, he said, for the French and Native Americans to remain allies, and he will explain the importance of trading deer skins, and coyote and beaver furs, which he will have on hand.  His display also will include coins that were traded, along with Wampum belts made from oyster or clam shells that held messages from the Native American tribes.  

Dennis Kuemin of Niles has been a blacksmith reenactor for 20 years, basically learning the trade on his own. Attendees can see him use a forge, an anvil, tongs and hammers to make hooks for pots over a fire, as well as Frederick’s crosses. And if someone wants him to make something special for a fee that day, he says, he will do his best to accommodate them.

Stephanie McCune-Bell, the director of education at The History Museum in South Bend, will demonstrate the particulars of beeswax candle making.

Additionally, Potawatomi Historian Cecil Wilson, will give two presentations on the history of the Potawatomi Nation. Highlighting the day will be performances by four dancers and four drummers in native regalia from the Pokagon Band of the Potawatomi Nation.

An archaeological dig will be set up for children. Food will be available for purchase. The daily schedule is expected to be finalized this weekend. There is no admission charge.

The museum is located at 26818 W. Main St. (U.S. 12), Edwardsburg.

(Photo of Lynn Christensen by Meryl Christensen; Photo of Voyager canoe by Lynn Christensen. Logo is from the America250MI project which funded the museum’s deck renovation).