Bear River Rendezvous

On the weekend before Labor Day, tents, tipis and camps go up in Bear River State Park, on the east side of Evanston just south of Interstate 80 at exit 6. They recreate an early 1800s fur-trade setting, and visitors walk among them at their own pace. Wyoming State Parks counted the 2026 gathering, held August 28 to 30, as the 39th Bear River Rendezvous. Events began at 9 a.m. each day, and spectators were welcome. The program ran to archery and primitive shoots, the Fry Pan Toss, campfire music, and live historical demonstrations: a working blacksmith, flint knapping, black-powder shooting. A Dutch oven cookout gives visitors a taste of period food.

Traders set up among the camps. The posted rules for 2019 required them to dress in pre-1840s attire and to sell only what would reasonably have been found at a rendezvous before 1840.

The Mountain Man Run and the council fire

The 2019 schedule listed a paper shoot, a primitive shoot, a Big Boom Shoot, a fun shoot, a poker shoot and blanket shot, the Hawk and Knife Throw, archery, a Mountain Man Walk, a raffle and kids’ games. Max Roth, a reporter for Fox 13 in Salt Lake City, drove to one rendezvous weekend through rain heavy enough to keep his wipers busy and half expected to find it called off. It was running. “Mountain men and women will grumble, but they don’t run from rain,” he wrote.

At a picnic table he found three men in leather tassels gearing up with long guns. Scott Williams wore a woven overcoat, which he shed for the competition to show a bandolier over a long-sleeved button-up shirt. His son Sam wore a Union Army blue overcoat, and their friend Jason Jenson wore leather with latigo. “I’m actually not even related to these guys. We just, we literally met on the range. And we’ve been friends, and we text randomly throughout the year,” Jenson said.

They walked Roth to the start of the Mountain Man Run. It is a timed course on which each competitor loads a single-shot rifle and pistol at appointed places and shoots at targets. Scott Williams worked the course station by station and finished with the second-best round of the day. The best round went to a man who goes by Teaspoon. He came from Nebraska, and he and his wife both compete in Native traditional wear. Roth noted that the rendezvous tradition, past and present, includes tribal nations as much as mountain men. “This is what I do for a living,” Teaspoon said. “I travel to Rendezvous in the summer and tan hides in the winter.”

The run, like every day, ends at the council fire. Everyone gathers there to hear the results and hand out prizes. Every competition has men’s, women’s and youth categories, and the youth get the biggest prizes. “The idea is to encourage them to be a part of things,” Scott Williams said.

Steak turners, taffy, and the Buck-Skinner Ball

Layne Wardell’s tent, White River Traders, held hand-made steel implements set with antler and horn. Roth bought a steak turner there for his father and a knife for himself. Wardell finishes the pieces, and his son forges the blades. “He uses a coal forge to heat treat and temper them,” Wardell said. Nearby, Lucas Roberts sold wooden knives and guns and small bows with rubber-tipped arrows. “I ran for many years doing truck driving, and I wasn’t seeing what I wanted to see,” he said.

When two of the mountain men loaded the candy cannon, the children lined up. The cannon is a wide steel pipe that sprays taffy across the common area, loudly.

Many of the travelers who come are retired and live in trailers and tents. Troy Winchester, who grew up in South Weber, Utah, once talked himself out of attending. “I fell victim to ‘I’m not ready to go to a rendezvous.’ ‘I don’t have all the canvas, and I don’t have all the stuff.’ It takes a lot of money to look this poor,” he said. He came with his grandson Erik, a high school senior who lives in Evanston. “I always compete, but it’s not the biggest part. The biggest part is I’m hanging out with my grandpa,” Erik said.

On Saturday night of the 2023 rendezvous the public was invited to the Buck-Skinner Ball at 8 p.m., with the Mountain Man music of Tom and Carol Messerly.

A river the tribes called Quee-ya-paw

The park that hosts the camps was established in 1991. It covers 324 acres, is open for day use only, and takes its name from the river through it. According to the park, trappers called it the Bear River for the many bears that frequented the area, and the tribal people named it Quee-ya-paw for a tobacco root that grew along its banks. An arched footbridge crosses to more than three miles of packed gravel trail on the west bank. Paved trail runs on to the City of Evanston’s Bear River Greenway and downtown.

Bison have been part of the park since it opened, and the herd is held at 10 to 12 adults. Elk have lived there since April 1, 1995, all of them bulls. The two original elk are on display at the visitor center. One living bull, Boo, was 18 in 2026 and no longer grew antlers. By the park’s account, the bison usually return to the lower northwest pasture in late August, about the time the tents go up.

Ashley’s gathering of 1825

The rendezvous recreates a typical encampment from before 1840 and celebrates the region’s trapping heritage. The tradition it imitates began, according to WyoHistory.org, with William Ashley. He created the first Rocky Mountain fur trade rendezvous, held in June 1825 beside Henry’s Fork in what is now the far southeastern corner of Uinta County. Henry’s Fork was named for Andrew Henry, Ashley’s partner in the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. The park’s own history says only that Native tribes and trappers often held rendezvous in the area, including one in 1825 near Burnt Fork, about 50 miles southeast of the park. Roth glossed the French word: a rendezvous is a gathering planned so that people who spend their time in the wilderness know when they can count on seeing familiar faces.

The Evanston gathering reached its 36th year in 2023, when Wyoming State Parks called it one of the system’s longest-running celebrations and listed all events as free and open to the public. In 2019 the camp’s booshway was Tracker Brad Asay and its segundo White Elk Dave Miller. Roth set it beside the much larger rendezvous at Fort Bridger, just down the interstate, and preferred the smaller one.

Sam Williams said he first came as a boy and began competing at 10. When Roth met him he was 20, shooting a gun he had won as a youth competitor.