From SCRLD Wiki
[edit] When and Where
Rendezvous Days is held every first weekend in August in Yep Kanum Park in Colville, Washington.
[edit] Events
Events vary from year to year. Typically you can expect to see great good and drink at Rendezvous, as well as many craft and merchant tents set up on the grounds. The new Rotary Pavillion will likely be showcasing local talent, whether that be local bluegrass legend Fiddln' Red, the internationally known An Docas, or the local kung fu and tae kwon do troupe doing a demonstration. As the festival grows closer, check back at this page for links to a calender of events.
[edit] History of Rendezvous
Where did Rendezvous come from? Kim Frlan published this article in the Colville Statesman Examiner in August of 2006. Read on to hear about the history of the festival and this area.
Rendezvous – past and present
Kim Frlan, Colville Statesman Examiner
The first Colville Rendezvous celebration took place in October, 1984. Retired Statesman-Examiner publisher and Colville Rendezvous originator Pat Graham said he had felt the town needed a fall festival. Activities that year included tennis, bingo, a horse show, carnival rides, a horseshoe tournament, an arm wrestling contest, a black powder shoot, a political debate, and a country western dance. Fiddlin’ Red Simpson performed, with short hair, a trim goatee, and a jaunty tam o’shanter on his head.
Most of the activities took place in a vacant grocery store, formerly Friedman’s Thrift in present-day Pizza Factory, which was transformed into Rendezvous Hall for the weekend. There was also an encampment depicting trappers and traders from earlier times, and Colville Junior High students got into the spirit of Rendezvous by holding a Trappers and Traders Day, with Native American dancing, a trapping and skinning demonstration, and a trading fair.
The most famous Rendezvous occurred between 1825 and 1840 in ten different sites scattered across the Rocky Mountains. Trappers and traders came to an agreed-upon location at a set date each summer and spent two or three weeks trading furs for supplies, exchanging news, meeting up with settlers heading West, sending letters back east, engaging in sporting matches, entertaining with jaw harps, harmonicas and fiddles, and socializing in an infamous manner.
According to Fiddlin’ Red, who has been studying the history of trappers and traders for 30 years, the rowdy goings-on at the American rendezvous in the Rocky Mountains never occurred in this area. The Hudson Bay Company reigned here. All activities were tightly controlled by wealthy merchants from London.
Nevertheless, the present-day Colville Rendezvous, which usually takes place the first weekend of August at Yep Kanum Park, pays tribute to an early era of American history by hosting a gathering of people from a wide region so they can socialize, buy goods, engage in sporting activities, enjoy some entertainment, and partake of free-flowing libations in the beer garden, or at the vendors’ soda fountains.
