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| Bailly Homestead |
Joseph Bailly, a fur trader, acquired the homestead and surrounding lands during the 1830's when the Calumet was opened to white settlement. The family was not in the home long before Joseph died. Over the years many changes and additions were made to the structure.
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| living room with exposed lathe and plaster wall |
The house is only open to the public if they are in the company of a ranger. There was a strong mildew smell inside the home and the other buildings so I missed a lot of information on the tour. I was content to admire the buildings from the outside.
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| Summer kitchen later turned into a chapel |
The group followed Ranger Kelly to the nearby Chellberg Farm where she got her start with the National Park Service as a teenager working on the living history farm.
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| 1885 farmhouse |
Sadly funding for this endeavor is no longer available and the animals that used to plow the fields were sold off and all that is done at this time is planting and harvesting of the garden.
Maple syrup is made at the farm in early March and volunteers and rangers demonstrate how the Native Americans made syrup from sap as well as how the Swedish-American Chellberg family made it at the sugar shack in the 1930's.
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A living history farm would be a very interesting thing to see. What a shame there's a lack of funding.
ReplyDeleteI've been there when they used to host The Duneland Harvest Festival. It was so neat. You could see how they really lived back then. They still had the animals at Chellburg Farm back then. The festival was great because not only did they have the Bailly Homestead buildings open; they had artifacts from the settlers and the Native Americans, demonstrations of several activities they would've participated in, and even food and music from that time period. I was so sad when they stopped having that festival. 2009 was the last one I think.
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