This year the Celebration will once again feature Douglas Blue Feather who is an award winning songwriter and performer of contemporary Native American Flute music. Blue Feathers career highlights include the 2004, 2005 and 2006 Native American Music Award for Best New Age Recording, the 2003 Native American Music Award of the Year for his CD entitled Ride the Lightning, and the 2002 Native American Music Award for Independent Recording of the Year. Most recently he was nominated for the 2007 and 2008 American Indian Music Awards Nominee for Record of the Year and Artist of the Year.
The weekend will also provide for a variety of demonstrations for the public to watch and to learn. Some of the demonstrations include: flint knapping (making arrows and spears of stone), pottery making, silversmithing, stone carving, and dream catcher making to name a few. There will also be a silent auction to help raise money for future Celebration events at the site.
More than 40 vendors and demonstrators across Ohio will be at the event. Vendors will be selling handmade crafts, including jewelry, knives, clothing, utility wares, dance staffs, finger woven sashes, beaded necklaces, leather bags, flutes and much more. The Warren County Conservation Association will sell food. In addition, people will have the opportunity to listen to special presentations at certain times of the day. These presentations include storytelling, native heritage discussions and a discussion of the Shawnee language.
There will also be a discussion of herbs found in the Ohio area. The Celebration has grown from a single day event with several hundred visitors to a two-day event with up to three thousand visitors. Of special interest to the public is the three-hour drumming and dancing segment. Four drum groups are scheduled to attend: the White Oak Singers from Mt. Orab, Ohio; the Southern Singers from Middletown, Ohio; The Canadian Fireside Drum from Six Nations Reserve, Ontario, Canada; and Sky Hawk Drum from Cincinnati.
To many people the Celebration is a way for people to learn about the rich American Indian culture that was, and still is present in Ohio today. Those who participate in the event as volunteers have a goal of educating the public about the diversity of cultures in Ohio. Visitors will have the opportunity to observe an 18th-century encampment and talk to the re-enactors about pioneer life in the Ohio area.
Visitors will also have the opportunity to visit the museum at Fort Ancient. The public can learn about Ohio Valley prehistory and early history of the area. The museum also offers a large prehistoric garden that will be freshly planted by June. The Warren County Master Gardeners Association of Warren County has taken on the Fort Ancient garden as one of their volunteer projects. Master gardeners will be available from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. to answer any questions. People will be able to see demonstration plots of a variety of crops that were grown 2,000 and 1,000 years ago. A reconstructed Hopewell structure will be available for the public to view. Fort Ancient is in itself a wonderful prehistoric site that is 2,000 years old. It consists of 3.5 miles of earth walls that range from 4 to 23 feet in height and are confined into a space of around 100 acres. The prehistoric people during the Hopewell Culture (100BC-AD500) built and used Fort Ancient as a place of ceremonial and social gatherings. The stone covered mounds one will see at the site are astronomical marking mounds. By observing the movements of the sun and moon people could gather at certain days of the year to celebrate specific events and ceremonies.Fort Ancient is one of 58 sites operated by the Ohio Historical Society, a private, nonprofit organization that serves as the states partner in preserving and interpreting Ohios history, archaeology and natural history.
Admission: $9/adult and $5/youth (ages 6-12)
Times and Dates: June 13 – 14; 11:00 am -7:00 pm
Fort Ancient is located just off I-71 near Oregonia, approximately 20 minutes north of Kings Island.
For further information phone Ft Ancient State Memorial @ (513) 932-4421 or 1-800-283-8904
