Feast of the Hunters Moon, Fort Ouiatenon Indiana
The "Feast of the Hunters Moon" is an annual even held at the Fort (near West Lafayette, Indiana) every year. It's intended to recreate a fur trapper's rendezvous of the type that were common on the frontier during the colonial period. It features a huge number of merchants selling everything from food (most of which is at least relatively authentic - no Chinese food here!) to period goods like clothing, weapons, etc.
It's also a great source of pictures of 18th century "stuff" - uniforms, guns, etc.
I've been going to Ouiatenon semi-annually since I was very, very young. As a kid we dressed in period clothes, and it's just as well that I have no pictures from that period!
The Feast features a large number of reenactors from the French and Indian War (Seven Year's War for you Europeans) and the American Revolution era. I thought some pictures from my trip to this year's even would be of interest to historical gamers, if only to see the colors, etc in the uniforms.
Note - I've combined my all my pictures from past years into this article - so they'd be in one spot of ease of reference. Enjoy!
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| Part of the encampment. | The parade getting ready. | The French... |
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| A very nice rifle, set against an ornately painted chest | I've always like blunderbusses with brass barrels | Some of the cannon. |
 In case you've never been to Indiana, it pretty much looks like this - flat with lots of corn! |
 The blockhouse at Fort Ouiatenon. Although technically, the fort was about a half mile west of this site, and apparently didn't include a blockhouse, at least according to the excavation map they showed me. |
 The Wabash river, one of the important water routes in the area. |
 Flags flying over part of the encampment, I believe where one of the unit of highlander reenactors was camping. |
 Part of the encampment. Note all the woodsmoke. To this day, the smell of woodsmoke reminds me of Ouiatenon. |
 More of the encampment. Note the more modern camping equipment in the background! |
 More encampment. |
 More of the encampment. |
 More of the encampment. |
 A shot of some of the period clothing at one of the merchant tents. Colors/patterns might be useful. |
 One of the colorful trapper/mountain man types. |
 I'm guessing these guys are reenacting American militia. |
 American musicians |
 American cavalrymen? |
 More militia. |
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 British Reenactors. |
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 French reenactors. The one guy has really got the expression down!! |
 More french. |
 Look out the Highlanders are here! I believe they're meant to be the Black Watch. |
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 Indians, arriving in non-traditional transportation (what did you think they'd be on horses or something?) |
 Indians in the parade. |