Past and present intermingled on the grounds of the Central Whidbey Sportsmen’s Association as traders and mountainmen gathered for the fifth annual Rendezvous on the Plains of Whidbey Island.

The three-day event began Friday, Aug. 17 and continued through Sunday, Aug. 19, before camp was broken and the trappers returned to their everyday lives.

Visitors strolling along traders row were drawn to the sound of tomahawks, (just “hawks” in the language of the mountains), thunking into a wooden target and the sound of knives whistling through the air.

It was Thundering Buffalo, aka Bill Loy, teaching a crowd of greenhorns the proper way to bend their wrists, step and make the weapons stick.

From the town of Glacier where he works as a computer systems engineer, Mr. Buffalo said he has has taught knife and hawk throwing at the Rendezvous for all five years.

“It’s what I do here, hopefully we can get more people interested and come out and give it a try,” he said.

One of the throwers learning the technique was 14-year-old Grace Tarasoff from Coupeville, who said this was her first rendezvous.

“We came yesterday and they said they would be throwing today so we came back,” she said. “I have learned a lot from these guys, not just how to throw, things like history about Indians that I wouldn’t learn anywhere else.”

“She’s learning how to defend herself against those Oak Harbor boys,” Tarasoff’s mother, Laura, said with a laugh.

Another thrower was Erin Shannon from Moorehead, Minn., who said she and her boyfriend, Nathan Brand from Fargo, N.D., were just driving through the area and stopped to see what was going on.

“It looked like an attraction,” Shannon said. “We are staying in Lynnwood with my boyfriend’s cousin. My boyfriend is going back to work next week, but I’m a dental hygienist and I’m taking a class at Pierce College so I’ll be staying. We took the ferry over today and were planning on driving up to Friday Harbor. This is the first one of these things I’ve ever been to.”

In the encampment and dressed in period costumes, Donna Helgeson from Clear Lake and Donna Manke from Sedro-Woolley were discussing how their dresses were handmade and what types of fabric were used with Sadie Strain and Ally McGuire, both from Oak Harbor.

“I make all my outfits and I like to wear colonial clothes,” Manke said. “My mother made the dress my friend, Donna, is wearing.”

Helgeson said she also bakes banana and zucchini bread. “Just five bucks a loaf,” she said.

Strain and McGuire said they are both 12-year-olds and are best friends.

“My mother, Paige, and I come to a lot of these and Sadie said she’d like to come with us this time,” McGuire said. “I’ve been to a couple of Pacific Primitive Rendezvous and one Rocky Mountain. I think I’ve been to this one twice. The most fun I had at a rendezvous was at the first Pacific Primitive. It rained and we had to camp in the mud.”

Looking a bit bleary eyed, Willie Eyl from Port Townsend was enjoying a late breakfast of steak, eggs and home fries cooked over an outdoor fire at his campsite.

“I got a late go this morning,” he said. “I’m a little bit hurt from last night, I got into my own medicine.”

Eyl said he is a member of the Peninsula Long Rifles and works as a boat builder in Port Townsend.

“I try to get to as many of these things as I can. They are a blast and you meet a lot of good people,” he said.

Dressed in his fringed buckskins in the last tent of the encampment Gary Sheets from Stanwood, known as Ricochet among the mountainmen, was showing Lorraine Keps from Oak Harbor a pair of cap-lock, black powder pistols.

“One of them is a Patriot .45 caliber and the other is a LaPage, a French dueling pistol,” Sheets said. “They are both replicas and just like the original ones, they have set triggers. The Patriot has a double-set trigger and the LaPage has an adjustable one. After you set the triggers, all you have to do is touch lightly with your finger and the pistol will fire.”

On the American frontier in the early 1800’s people lived a simpler existence and for one weekend in August, “modern” folks had the opportunity to enjoy a step back in time.