by Nancy Besonen

Baraga was literally booming this past weekend during the Upper Peninsula Muzzleloaders Association (UPMLA) 4oth Rendezvous at the Ottawa Sportsmen's Club (OSC).

The three-day event is an annual celebration of the pre-1840's pioneer spirit, with an added incentive too spur and sustain interest in muzzleloaders. Men and women from the UPMLA gather annually at the club grounds to camp and compete, with an emphasis on fun.

Lodges (canvas tents) went up Thursday afternoon and early evening. A longbow competition comments at 2 p.m., followed by a distance shoot on the OSC range at 5 p.m. Between loud booms, UPMLA Treasurer comment on the action.

"That's Bob Keen, the organizer of the shoot," Henkel said as a man in a loose, pioneer-style shirt stepped up to shoot. "He painted all the targets and got it ready. He's very meticulous. He's a professor of biology at MTU."

Keen shot well too, along with Lyle Merrill, Sandy Hebert and others who stepped up to take aim at targets ranging up to 150 yards. Henkel said she also used to shoot competitively but was saving her energies this year for the tomahawk throw on Friday.

"Yeah," she answered with a bright smile. "I'm good."

That's the spirit that pervades throughout the campground of friendly fold who are happy to share their views and values on pioneer living. Henkel said weather reports last week had predicted a warm and sunny weekend. She set up camp in a sudden downpour.

"We get what we get," she said, adding that the rain didn't put a damper on the longbow contest earlier that day. Swinging targets add to the longbow challenge, some of them swinging aside to reveal targets hidden underneath.

Near the clubhouse Roger St. Andre set up camp while his wife, Mary, snuggled into a long coat and eagerly awaited a fire. Close by, three campers who go only by their Rendezvous names of Otter, Walking Eagle and Autumn Sunshine rounded one that was already crackling.

Both groups warmly welcomed passing company. Walking Eagle, his craggy features furrowed by a wicked scar alongside his right eye and his right arm encased in a thick brace, even offered up a "Rendezvous Story" about a recent run-in with a bear.

"I was walkin' in the woods over yonder and run into a big, black bear," Walking Eagle said, warming up to the tale, "and he didn't want to move, so I spit in his eye! He slapped me back, and peeled my skin back. I was so ticked off I was going to slap him on the face—and he chomped my arm."

Walking Eagle's evil grimace and wide gestures add a lot to the story, which he always ends with the truth: He was airing up a tire on June 1 when it exploded, driving the rim up into his arm and face.

"I always tell the truth in the end, because I don't want people to be afraid of bears," he said.

And so the stories went, along with shoots and tomahawk throws (Walking Eagle had to compete left-handed this year)(that will be another story for next year.)

The Rendezvous ended Saturday with a potluck meal, business meetings, an awards ceremony and raffles, sending members back to the present with a fresh appreciation for the past.

For more information about the group, see upmuzzleloaders.com—or come on out for its 41st Rendezvous next summer at the OSC in Baraga.