Close to 60 women from around Canada and the United States camped out at the West Coast Rangers Black Powder Club this weekend to learn and teach skills from the pioneer era.
The Women’s Pioneer Skills weekend is a three-day event for women to share skills, crafts, conversation and an opportunity to step back in time to the pioneer era in North America (1780-1849). The workshops teach women how to be proficient in skills they would have used during this time.
“A lot of us are in the Black Powder shooting community, the rendezvous community so this morning, this afternoon and tomorrow morning we’re putting on sessions and it’s about everything and anything,” said Marg Shepherd, AKA Flower. “We’re doing sourdough baking, somebody else is doing cast iron cooking, they’re making pine needle baskets, they’re doing a whole whack of things.”
Shepherd said everyone gets a rendezvous nickname and dress in pioneer style fashions.
“It’s just fun to get together and learn things from each other and when we go out rendezvousing, this is some of the stuff that we can take back with us,” Shepherd said.
