Stay in Touch with MDC news, newsletters, events, and manage your subscription
Xplor reconnects kids to nature and helps them find adventure in their own backyard. Free to residents of Missouri.
A monthly publication about conservation in Missouri. Started in 1938, the printed magazine is free to residents of Missouri.
Kansas City, Mo. – A real-life taste of The Revenant is coming to the Missouri Department of Conservation’s (MDC) Lake City Shooting Range. The annual Lake City Rendezvous will celebrate the early 1800s fur trade era 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on April 9 at the Lake City Range and Outdoor Education Center, 28505 E. Truman Road, Buckner.
The Rendezvous will feature black powder shooters, fur pelt displays, blacksmith iron working demonstrations, campfire cooking and many more primitive outdoor and camping skills. This free event for all ages will also include pioneer era games for children. Activities will include tomahawk and knife throwing, atlatl, archery, broom making, knife making, Native American teepee, flint knapping and other skills from a bygone era.
MDC’s Lake City Range is located not far from where fur trade era history was made. When the real-life Hugh Glass headed to the Rocky Mountains with fur trappers, he likely paddled up the Missouri River past deer trails leading to into hills of what became Jackson County. Historical accounts say key events featured in the movie, The Revenant, began in 1823 when Glass was mauled by a grizzly bear in present-day South Dakota.
The Missouri River was the highway to the West during the Rocky Mountain fur trade era. Trappers went upstream and furs were shipped downstream. William Clark established Fort Osage on the river’s south shore in 1808 as a fur trading post. The fort was northeast as the eagle flies from the Lake City Shooting Range. Mountain man Jim Bridger, a key character in the movie as a young trapper, spent his last years in the Kansas City area. Bridger died in 1881 and is buried in Mount Washington Cemetery in Independence, west of the Lake City range. The Kansas City area was first a fur trapping destination, then a river-based fur trade center for outfitting, travel and shipping.
MDC’s Lake City Rendezvous will feature re-enactors and artisans who celebrate the nature craft, skills and artistry of the fur trade era. Visitors will be able to try their own hand at some of the skills such as archery. For more information, call 816-249-3194 or visit http://mdc.mo.gov/node/282.
