Fort Reenactment Planned This Weekend

Mackinac State Historic Parks will host a series of free Memorial Day weekend performances recreating the 1763 Indian capture of Fort Michilimackinac in Mackinaw City. The performances will take place on the grounds outside Colonial Michilimackinac.

Performances are scheduled for 3:30 p.m. Saturday, May 28, and 2:30 p.m. Sunday, May 29, and Monday, May 30. Other weekend events will include the area’s largest spring parade at 1 p.m. Saturday, musket firing and knife throwing competitions, 18th century fashion shows, and a fireworks display.

Coordinated by Spirits of the North, a Mackinaw City community group, the event brings together more than 400 historical intrepreters from around Michigan to reenact the surprise attack on the historic fort. The pageant is in its 43rd year.

Fort Michilimackinac was at the center of the vast Great Lakes fur trade in 1763, when Indian dissatisfaction with the British erupted in a series of attacks led by Chief Pontiac, including the siege of Fort Detroit. At Michilimackinac, local Ojibwa staged a game of baggatiway, or lacrosse, near the fort’s gate. Warriors, supposedly chasing an errant ball into the fort, suddenly drew knives and tomahawks from the women spectators and overtook the fort by force.

Colonial Michilimackinac has been reconstructed on the original site of the fort and fur trading outpost. The fort is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day, and will be open until 6 p.m. May 28 and May 29.