Larry Kline
Havre Daily News
lkline@havredailynews.com
Hi-Line children will get a chance Saturday to get a handle on history.
The second-annual Hands On History event will give children the opportunity to see what life was like for frontier settlers and the Native Americans alike.
The event has nearly doubled in size since last year, organizer Anna Brumley said. Almost 50 activities await children at the Holiday Village Shopping Center on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m..
Children will have the chance to make ice cream, puppets, and rope. They can use a cardboard loom, throw an atlatl, and make items out of leather.
“The idea is that the children should experience some of this stuff and get to walk away with something,” Brumley said.
The event is truly a fun day for families, she said.
“The grandparents and the parents come out and they bring the children, and they help the children out,” she said. “It's a teaching experience. A learning experience.”
The event is a fundraiser for the H. Earl Clack Museum Foundation. Three tickets cost $1, and the events cost between two and four tickets.
Kids can pan for gold in a tank in the parking lot, thanks to the efforts of a Lewistown man who runs his own mine, Brumley said. Whatever the children find, they can keep. A gold nugget and three gold flakes will be the prizes in a free drawing, she added.
One new attraction this year is a Civil War cannon. For $5, kids can load, pack and shoot the weapon out over the bluffs of the Wahkpa Chu'gn buffalo jump. About 65 children will have a chance to shoot off the powder - there is no cannonball. Brumley said a sign-up sheet will be used for the event.
“We're very safety conscious,” she added.
Children will be able to ride horses, learn an American Indian round dance, see how a telegraph operates, grind wheat and use a barbed-wire phone.
A Hispanic family will show kids how to make pinatas.
She said the event saw about 500 children last year. The idea came from a woman who attended the Cottonwood Festival in Great Falls, Brumley said. The woman approached the foundation's board and suggested putting together a similar event. The idea took off from there, Brumley said, and presenters have been more than willing to help with the festivities.
“I think we've got something good going here,” she said.
