The USU Eastern Prehistoric Museum is pleased to announce its in augural Fremont Festival on May 5 through May 7, as part of Utah’s Archaeology and Historic Preservation Month. Castle Country Radio was able to sit down with Museum Director, Dr. Tim Riley to get all the details.
On Friday, May 5 at 7:00 pm there will be Fremont Fest Feast where folks can come enjoy a tasting of meals/foods that were available to the Freemont. “Its really a little bit focused on how we can best understand the role of food in Fremont culture and after I go through some of the hard scientific evidence of our food ways, I actually serve a tasting meal of about six or seven dishes, based on available ingredients and techniques to the Freemont people. So these are all dishes that the Fremont could have and in some cases, I know would have, been making about 1,000 years ago here in Eastern Utah,” stated Dr. Riley. This event takes place at 7:00 pm in the Don L. Burge Multi-purpose Room at the Prehistoric Museum. Admission is free but attendance is capped at 30 people.
Saturday, May 6 will be the Freemont Fest Family Day at the museum. This means there will be free admission to the museum and activities for kids to enjoy. “We’ve got a number of great activities planned internally at the museum, but we’re also going to be having a bunch of guest organizations come down and have tables, some of them will be informational like the local Castle Valley Archeology Society is going to have a table there. As well as, the Utah Rock Art Research Association, then we’ll have the Manti-LaSal Forest, and our friends from the Utah Culture Site Stewardship Program, and the State History Office, Historic Preservation Office, are going to be down helping us with activities. So they’ll be activities in and out of the museum from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm, and free admission from 9:00 am to 7:00 pm,” stated Dr. Riley. There will be food trucks available during the event like Ruben’s BBQ and Tallies & Smallies will be in the parking lot for all your food and beverage needs.
Then on Sunday it will be the Freemont Fest Field Trips where officials will be offering a few different field trips to attend. “We are partnering with our local advocational group, the Castle Valley Archeological Society to offer a couple of field trips. One is a field trip where we’re going to be going into the field, we’re going to be going and exploring the Grassy Trail Creek, which is East Carbon area, and Sunnyside and we’re going to be exploring. The other tour is going to be at the museum, its will be a Behind the Scenes Tour with the Museum’s Collection Manager, Katy Corneli,” explained Dr. Tim Riley. The other tour will be of the canyons surrounding Helper with Ellis Powelson. The tours are capped at 10 people and you must register beforehand.
For more information about the USU Eastern Prehistoric Museum Fremont Fest visit their website at https://eastern.usu.edu/prehistoric-museum/ or call the museum at (435) 637-5060.