Schedule

Our sessions last 8 weeks.

Spring 2025 sessions commence on Monday, March 31, 2025 and will end on Monday, May 19, 2025. Spring sessions will be delivered on each class day in four 40 minute segments, with one 20-minute break. This spring, ages 4-18 are able to participate.

Join us as we trailblaze our way through the Western Frontier! Our session focuses on the Oregon Trail and the pioneers for whom we call our predecessors. Engagement in the chemistry of camp cooking, celebration of line dancing, artistic skills of rug and candle making, slingshots and the history of the Oregon Trail are amongst some of the things we will learn. 

Winter 2025 Schedule
”THE WESTERN FRONTIER

Monday, March 31 - Monday, May 19, 2025
TIME: 3 - 6 PM

Dance & Sport, Frontier Style - Despite the perils of pioneering into the great unknown the move out west provided respite at camp downtime. Families and settlers alike celebrated life through both story and dance. Forms of English Country Dancing or folk dancing accompanied the drive out west and homesteaders performed sequences of choreographed steps in unison as an expression of jollity. Outdoor living, abundant game and the need for food supplied frontiersmen with adaptation to trapping with a return to innovation in the handheld catapult otherwise known as the slingshot. 
Heading Out West: The Oregon Trail - Imagine a wagon road stretching 2170 miles from Missouri to Oregon's Willamette Valley. Not a road in any modern sense, just parallel ruts leading across endless prairie, sagebrush desert, and mountains. Calls to the heart of every frontiersman for the drive of land and ownership propelled a nation's expansion into the rugged terrain west of the Mississippi River.  Their journey and subsequent arrival shaped the nature of who we call pioneer.  
The Rise of the American Artisan - The Western Frontier was a rugged environment where rustic artisans utilized every bit of materials possible in an effort to tie them to former roots and pivot to preserving on trail life. Iron work, rug making, needle arts and candle making are a few of the pioneer arts. Once settled these fashioned wares adorned their new homesteads calling their new abodes homes.
Chemistry of Camp Fire Cooking - During the westward expansion the pioneer faced limitations in their repertoire for meals. Yet these rugged individuals learned the science of and the chemistry behind camp cooking.  Dutch ovens became the mainstay for the move out west. Preservation and smoking of goods became an integral part of life and survival.