Fort Edmonton tomfoolery!
Aug. 23rd, 2010 01:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bebootsI'm feeling restless at my research assistant job (having completed almost all of my work), and so I'm taking a well-earned break to write about my other history-related job, Fort Edmonton. Remember how I wrote about my "fort husband" a few weeks ago? And how I promised I'd upload photographs of him? Well, I keep getting "internal server error" messages from livejournal whenever I make the attempt at uploading the super-awesome photograph that I want, so, uh... Here are a few that I could find online!
Here's a quite nice one from an article on the opening weekend of the park this year, of him toasting to Queen Victoria like a good Victorian gentleman. The sixth photograph in that set, by the way, is of Rebecca, one of the girls in the Cree camp, looking contemplative... but the expression on her face is more likely because of the abominable cold that weekend. It snowed! Oh, Canada...
Anyway, I'll tell you a bit about the crazy soap operas we seem to have at Fort Edmonton... I mentioned last time that I play the wife of Will's alter ego, Duncan, when he's not being the Chief Factor, John Rowand, which works out nicely because when my husband's away... ;) Anyway, the joke started out because I had approached Mr. Rowand as he was speaking with a visitor to tell him that the stew I'd been working on (and had promised him a bowlful of) was finished. "Thank you, Anne-Marie", he said.
As I was walking away, the visitor asked, "Is that your wife?"
He laughed, and said, "No, that's my mistress." It was a one-off joke, and when he later came to me and apologized if I'd been offended or anything, I laughed and said that no, it'd be funny! (Again, for the alter-ego shenanigans.)
Interestingly enough, only a week or two later, Tom Long of 1920s street, who does a lot of independent research, came by towards the end of the day with a few more documents, one of which indicated that John Rowand... MAY have had a mistress! Tom was saying to Will that he could totally interpret that, if he was careful, and Will laughed and just said "Already got that handled - Anne-Marie!" He called out that last bit as I was walking down the boardwalk across the way. I waved. ;)
Oh, another funny story before I get back to work... Yesterday, I was running up and down the servants stairwell for a bit, fetching things for the Gentlemen's Tea programme (milk in the fridge upstairs, kettles in the basement, oops, forgot the tealeaves, etc.), and I was jogging up the staircase, in a bit of a hurry, when four little blonde girls appeared at the top, peering around the corner. The eldest couldn't have been older than six years of age. They took one look at me, and as I was about to greet them ("Good day!"), two of them screamed and one of them yelled "INDIANS!" and they all ran. I'm sure that the two youngest were just running and screaming because the others were, but, uh... yeah. I was pretty bemused about the whole thing.
Anyway, I had to follow them because they were running towards the garret, where we have the fridge, and their mum peeked around the corner and yelled "I can hear you running from here!", chastising them, for which I'm grateful. I don't like kids running in the houses, you see - lots of artefacts and tripping hazards. Also, it's loud and disrespectful.
So you know how I was running up and down the staircases several times? I ran into them twice more! Each time, they ran off screaming. The third time, I ran into the mum, too, and I was smiling and almost chuckling. I was mostly amused by the kids. She asked what they had said, and I replied "Oh, that's just the third time they've run screaming from me, shouting "Indians!"". The mum got a dark look in her face and went to give them a talk. I'm pretty sure that she thought I was offended at their apparent racism. I would have been, if they were any older, but kids are kids and I suppose that they've just been watching too much Peter Pan. Or something. :P
And HAHA! I've finally managed to upload the photograph I was thinking of a few weeks ago! This photograph is SO Will. (Um, not quite accurate to 1846, but, uh... JUST LOOK AT IT! That's Mike the blacksmith lying on the ground, conquered, by the way. He was passing love notes to Mr. Rowand's daughter, Nancy, you see.)
Here's a quite nice one from an article on the opening weekend of the park this year, of him toasting to Queen Victoria like a good Victorian gentleman. The sixth photograph in that set, by the way, is of Rebecca, one of the girls in the Cree camp, looking contemplative... but the expression on her face is more likely because of the abominable cold that weekend. It snowed! Oh, Canada...
Anyway, I'll tell you a bit about the crazy soap operas we seem to have at Fort Edmonton... I mentioned last time that I play the wife of Will's alter ego, Duncan, when he's not being the Chief Factor, John Rowand, which works out nicely because when my husband's away... ;) Anyway, the joke started out because I had approached Mr. Rowand as he was speaking with a visitor to tell him that the stew I'd been working on (and had promised him a bowlful of) was finished. "Thank you, Anne-Marie", he said.
As I was walking away, the visitor asked, "Is that your wife?"
He laughed, and said, "No, that's my mistress." It was a one-off joke, and when he later came to me and apologized if I'd been offended or anything, I laughed and said that no, it'd be funny! (Again, for the alter-ego shenanigans.)
Interestingly enough, only a week or two later, Tom Long of 1920s street, who does a lot of independent research, came by towards the end of the day with a few more documents, one of which indicated that John Rowand... MAY have had a mistress! Tom was saying to Will that he could totally interpret that, if he was careful, and Will laughed and just said "Already got that handled - Anne-Marie!" He called out that last bit as I was walking down the boardwalk across the way. I waved. ;)
Oh, another funny story before I get back to work... Yesterday, I was running up and down the servants stairwell for a bit, fetching things for the Gentlemen's Tea programme (milk in the fridge upstairs, kettles in the basement, oops, forgot the tealeaves, etc.), and I was jogging up the staircase, in a bit of a hurry, when four little blonde girls appeared at the top, peering around the corner. The eldest couldn't have been older than six years of age. They took one look at me, and as I was about to greet them ("Good day!"), two of them screamed and one of them yelled "INDIANS!" and they all ran. I'm sure that the two youngest were just running and screaming because the others were, but, uh... yeah. I was pretty bemused about the whole thing.
Anyway, I had to follow them because they were running towards the garret, where we have the fridge, and their mum peeked around the corner and yelled "I can hear you running from here!", chastising them, for which I'm grateful. I don't like kids running in the houses, you see - lots of artefacts and tripping hazards. Also, it's loud and disrespectful.
So you know how I was running up and down the staircases several times? I ran into them twice more! Each time, they ran off screaming. The third time, I ran into the mum, too, and I was smiling and almost chuckling. I was mostly amused by the kids. She asked what they had said, and I replied "Oh, that's just the third time they've run screaming from me, shouting "Indians!"". The mum got a dark look in her face and went to give them a talk. I'm pretty sure that she thought I was offended at their apparent racism. I would have been, if they were any older, but kids are kids and I suppose that they've just been watching too much Peter Pan. Or something. :P
And HAHA! I've finally managed to upload the photograph I was thinking of a few weeks ago! This photograph is SO Will. (Um, not quite accurate to 1846, but, uh... JUST LOOK AT IT! That's Mike the blacksmith lying on the ground, conquered, by the way. He was passing love notes to Mr. Rowand's daughter, Nancy, you see.)
