The Feast of the Hunter's Moon

Last weekend, we went to Fort Ouiatenon for the Feast of the Hunters' Moon. It is an annual celebration which takes place in the beginning of fall. This year is its 40th anniversary. In the history books, the French settlers and the Native Americans used to meet at Fort Ouiatenon during the 1700s for the trading of fur and pelts. In addition, the French fur traders were an important source of information about the outside world to the locals.

Lots of people at the entrance to the Feast... Just look at the queue!

There were many tents set up for this event. It feels like a pasar malam, except that it is very, very, very big... (We couldn't finish walking through the entire place even though we were there for four hours!) There were food stalls and craft stalls of all sorts.

We wanted to try some authentic fare, so we bought some Forfar Bridies, which are like curry puffs, without the curry...

This is the stall selling the Forfar Bridies...

And this is Shisheng, fifteen minutes into the queue...

(The Bridies were sold out, so we had to wait for the next batch to be ready...
They bake it on the spot so that it is fresh and hot...)
Good food requires patience!

Another satisfied customer...

And what is a fair without some all-American rootbeer?

The rootbeer is sold in nice blue glass bottles, and they charge $7 per bottle... Actually, the drink wasn't fantastic (A&W's tastes nicer!), so I think we paid more for the bottle...

And look! They sell rabbit stew too! I thought of giving it a try, in the spirit of try-something-new-every-day... but it was sold out... which was kind of a relief too, since I didn't want to have nightmares of rabbits chasing me...

And while they eat the rabbit meat, the fur is not wasted too... They sell it at $7 a piece... but I am not too sure what to use it for... Maybe Elmer Fudd will have a better idea...

A chest of rabbits' fur... eeks!