If you've been to the Fort, a
favourite moment for many is eating bannock at the Cree
Encampment. Bannock was to 1846 what Tim Horton's donuts are to
2011.
For those who can't get enough and need their fix after
September, when our genral admission ends for the season, we have a
Roasted Bannock recipe for you to enjoy.
Ingredients:
- 1 cup flour
- 1 pinch salt
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 tablespoon butter/margarine
- ½ cup water (or milk)
What To Do:
- Combine all dry ingredients.
- Rub/cut in butter.
- Add water (or milk), mix well.
- Pull off a small handful and roll into a "snake."
- Coil the dough around the tip of a wooden stick, leaving no
spaces between coils.
- Roast bannock over hot coals, like a marshmallow or hot dog,
rotating slowly.
- Bannock is done when it is golden brown and firm to the touch,
it should slide off the stick easily. Be careful, it will be very
hot.
Enjoy with butter, cinnamon and sugar, jam or any of your
favourite toppings!
Fort Edmonton Park was glad to host local player Johnny Boychuk
and the Stanley Cup on Friday the 19th.
About 700 people came for the function, and had their pictures
taken with Johnny and the Cup. Proceeds from the event went to
help the Edmonton Stollery Hospital.
Below are a few pictures from the event.
Fort Edmonton Park is full of interesting objects
and antique tools. One such object recently caught our
attention. An interesting device that we couldn't explain so we
turned to one of our amazing Curators, Benita Hartwell to find
out more.
"The proper term for the device is a candlemold. It would have
been made by a tinsmith, probably working out of the back of Ross
Bros. Hardware, which we represent on 1885 Street. Frederick Ross,
one of the two brothers who ran the store, was a tinsmith. Although
the business shipped in a great deal of heavy equipment by Red
River cart and riverboat, it was in the interest of all settlers,
and especially businessmen, to be able to make and repair goods
from other products at hand. Most early hardware stores were
operated by tinsmiths, since they could make simple products, and
then assemble or repair more complex items like cast-iron stoves,
the staple of the hardware store.
Candles themselves would have been made of tallow
in 1885, which is made by rendering beef fat. Rendering fat is
almost as important an industry to Edmonton as fur trading is, but
far less celebrated. During the fur trade, Fort Edmonton's position
near the prairies made it ideal as a pemmican-production centre.
Aboriginal bands would trade meat and fat in addition to pemmican.
It would be the job of both men and women to render fat and mix the
tallow with pounded dried meat to make high-calorie pemmican - the
fuel of the fur trade. In 1847, Fort Edmonton and the other posts
in the Saskatchewan District produced 7,392 lbs of hard grease and
over 100,000lbs of pemmican!
Tallow was also vital for candles, as Hudson's Bay
Company clerks kept meticulous books by candlelight. Soap was also
made from tallow, making fat one of the most versatile and
necessary ingredients in history.
By the settlement period, the fat would come from
cattle instead of bison, but the uses would be similar. Later on,
fancy candles could arrive for purchase at a place like Reed's
Bazaar without having to make one's own. Thomas Henderson,
whose house is represented on 1905 Street, was one of the first
Edmontonians to keep bees, thus introducing homemade beeswax
candles to the settlement.
I could go on, but any
curious folk should come down to the park yourself and ask a
costumed interpreter! Got any good stories or tricks for
making tallow candles? We'd love to hear them.