Black Powder rendezvous a celebration of the past

By Justin Seward on September 6, 2022.

Herald photo JUSTIN SEWARD Dan VanderHeiden of Medicine Hat fires a shotgun during the muzzle loading competition at the 50th annual Fort Whoop-Up Black Powder Club Rendeavzous on Sunday.

The 50th annual Fort Whoop-Up Black Powder Club Rendezvous hosted 30 shooters over the weekend.

The rendezvous involved shooting scenarios on a trail walk, pistol events, shot guns, hawk and knife and archery.

“A rendezvous was back in the days where everybody – fur traders, fur trappers … all got together, brought in their furs and their wares to the fort. It was a celebration, a year end of trapping,” said Terry Sutton, Fort Whoop-up Black Powder Club vice president.

“And it’s a continuation from that. So each club is different. Down in the States they have re-enactments of the military stuff back in the day. This is similar to that. It’s nice when people dress up to the period. Some clubs- they give points for that, too. We’re not too particular on that.”

The rendezvous saw shooters go up in the hills to shoot targets.

“So we go up in the hillside and we’re shooting gongs, bells, pieces of metal, plate,” he said.

“We’ve got targets that are way out there … and it’s nice when you shoot the rifle, the powder goes off and not even a half a second later you hear ding as you hit the metal.”

Sutton said the numbers of shooters are slowly decreasing but they’re kind of steady.

“With COVID, (it) kind of shut things down and then gas prices, it’s a little bit (expensive) for people to travel farther from Edmonton down here.”

Sutton thought it was pretty good for the club to reach 50 years.

“If you’ve got a source of volunteers and you’ve got people that have been in the club for quite a few years, you know they’re the guys keeping the club going. It would be nice to get more younger people involved. I mean I’m 66 myself, so sometimes I’m one of the young guys. But there are some younger guys. So we just need them to get involved more to keep the club going year after year.”

Prizes were awarded for first and second place in all the events.

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