Les Amis du Fort de Chartres Sponsors Fort de Chartres Winter Rendezvous

Prairie du Rocher, IL- This annual event features 18th and early 19th century camp life and re-enactors who participate in muzzleloader woodswalk shooting competition.

Fort de Chartres State Historic Site presents a weekend of colorful clothing, hand-made crafts, period music and delicious food when the annual Winter Rendezvous returns November 5 & 6. Soldiers, trappers, traders and Native Americans (as portrayed by historic re-enactors) will gather at the rendezvous. They will trade goods, buy supplies, and some will take part in a shooting contest that requires them to walk through the woods and fire flintlocks at pop-up targets.

The rendezvous is fun both for the participants demonstrating frontier life from 1700 to1820 and for visitors spending an autumn day wandering among the tents, camp fires and a historic French colonial fort. The event is open and free to the general public. This event is hosted by Les Coureurs des Bois de Fort de Chartres and sponsored by Les Amis du Fort de Chartres. Please check the Winter Rendezvous website page http://www.fortdechartres.us/2022-fdc-winter-rendezvous/ for an event flyer, participant and/or event rules information, and for any relevant event updates. For more event inquiries, email [email protected].

The Fort de Chartres Winter Rendezvous is hosted by Les Coureurs des Bois de Fort de Chartres and sponsored by Les Amis du Fort de Chartres. Both organizations welcome visitors, participants, and volunteers to this first special event at held at Fort de Chartres in 2022. Please check out the Fort de Chartres website, www.fortdechartres.us, for additional information and the list of the Fort’s special events and dates. For additional event information, please email [email protected].

Fort de Chartres State Historic Site, which includes its historic Powder Magazine structure, widely considered the oldest building in Illinois, is located only an hour from downtown St. Louis, at 1350 IL Route 155, 4 miles west of Prairie du Rocher, Illinois.

The site is operated by the Illinois Historic Preservation Division of the Department of Natural Resources. IDNR protects the state’s historic resources, which contribute to education, culture and the economy. IDNR sites include ancient burial mounds, forts and buildings erected by settlers, and homes connected to famous Illinoisans. For more site information, call Fort de Chartres State Historic Site at 618-284-7230 or visit www.fortdechartres.us.

Les Amis du Fort de Chartres, “Friends of Fort de Chartres,” is a not-for-profit organization made up of volunteers striving to preserve, protect, and interpret the physical structural and cultural heritage of Fort de Chartres in the 1700s. More information about Les Amis du Fort de Chartres and its efforts sponsoring special events at Fort de Chartres, can be found at http://www.fortdechartres.us/les-amis-du-fort-de-chartres/ and at https://www.facebook.com/LesAmisduFortdeChartres/