Get Outdoors Day to Connect People to Healthy, Active, Outdoor Fun on June 13

Date: May 29, 2015
Contact: Bobby Gutierrez, Park Ranger, 360-816-6247
Contact: Mike Twist, Park Ranger, 360-816-6246
Contact: Greg Shine, Chief Ranger & Historian, 360-816-6231

VANCOUVER, WA –Experience free outdoor activities and family fun at the annual National Get Outdoors Day (GO Day) and Brigade Encampment on Saturday, June 13, 2015 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, located at 1115 East Fifth Street in Vancouver, Washington.

Held on public lands across the country, GO Day is a free family event promoting healthy, active, outdoor fun. The event's primary goal is to connect first-time visitors, underserved populations, people interested in planning an outdoor adventure, and youth to the opportunities available in the great outdoors and in public lands.   

The event will offer a mix of information centers and active fun areas—places where guests—and especially kids—can, fish, pitch a tent, ride a bike, become a junior ranger, and more. The event will also provide photo opportunities with characters like Smokey Bear, Woodsy Owl, Ranger Rick, and many of their furry and feathered friends.

In 2015, GO Day will bring over 50 city, county, federal, non-profit, and outdoor-based organizations and businesses together to introduce the public to fun outdoor activities. Partners include the US Forest Service, City of Vancouver, Clark County, National Park Service, Vancouver-Clark Parks and Recreation, Second Step Housing, and the Parks Foundation of Clark County. Of the 138 official GO Day sites across the nation, GO Day at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site is the second largest, with over 5,000 people participating annually.

"This event is a great way to learn about the opportunities available for recreation and fun in our public lands," said Superintendent Tracy Fortmann. "As we begin to celebrate the centennial of the National Park Service, it is especially significant that we host GO Day here, in a national park. We all hope to connect people to parks and public lands, and help them find their park--whether it is  operated by a city, county, state, federal government, non-profit, or other organization."

At the National Park Service's annual Brigade Encampment, a component of GO Day, costumed reenactors will portray the jovial return of the nineteenth century Hudson's Bay Company's fur brigades to Fort Vancouver, with a focus on how day-to-day survival skills of trappers in the 1840s have become recreational pursuits today, and how our relationships to the natural world have changed over time.

During the encampment, attendees can sign a replica Hudson's Bay Company contract, throw a trade ax, challenge a voyageur to a game of Cat and Mouse, observe cooking and beading techniques, enjoy music and dance from the era, and witness historic weapons firing demonstrations. While seen as recreational activities today, many outdoor hobbies were survival skills and fundamental to a life of fur trapping in the 1840s.