2024 - Winternights Viking Festival Updates
We will be posting updates here, on WNF facebook page, and on LSF pages until event.
Sat 10/5 – two weeks from today will be holding our 14th WN Viking Festival. Current progress includes clearing back all growth in readiness for festival.
10/5 – Fire pit uprights and cross piece are in place. Pit has be excavated.. Stones are in readiness to be positioned around opening. We’ve also moved the forging stump and forging rock into position. The fire shield and soapstone heat shield also are in position to build this year’s iron smelt furnace.. Last the stump for compressing the hot iron on is in place.
10/6 – Continued work on fire pit and cleaning grounds. We also added 2 images of the hand carvings that are offered by A Touch of Glass And to our vendor page. We have confirmed another vendor will be participating and are just waiting for images and their info to add them to vendor page.
10/7 – The rune wall banner is still in good physical shape but the images are fading from UV and outdoor exposure.. We placed an order for a new one to put up.. The old one may be a free raffle give away.. Unfortunately the 10 x 20 canvas that we painted Yggdrasil on is ripped in half and tattered. We have chosen to get a smaller one with the same image on it.. Both should be here by the end of the week.
The main task we were working on today was separating all stones and pebbles out of the creek clay we have left over from last year. Its a slow process but we should be done by tomorrow. We pleased to announce that Landscape Materials of Hillsboro is donating infield clay which we will mix with this clay. Plans are to pick it up on Wed.
10/10 – Continued work on preparing materials for use in smelting furnace. We picked up the red clay soil from LMI yesterday. It contains stones, pebbles, and red clay nodules which we separated out using wire and cloth seives. The 5 gallon bucket is now about 1/2 full but of ultra fine clay particles. The grey clay is also sorted down to just clay. It is not fine particles but rather thin clay pieces. They completely fill another 5 gallon bucket.
We recieved approval from township zoning department for our temporary outdoor activity permit today.. Thank you to Allison in zoning and all the other township departments for processing it quickly. Our festival is now legal – YEA!
According to tracking info both of our new tapestries are on their way here and should arrive by Wed. That should be plenty of time to get them into position.
We have placed a front page ad on Whofish.org that should start running from this Sat until next Friday.
We now have about 55 lbs of iron ore. We began smashing it but need to build a fire to roast it in. This to drive out any potential moisture that may be in it that could otherwise explode in the furnace.. It usually also helps create weakness in the ore so that it is easier to smash into smaller pieces.
10/12 – More preparation for our Viking Iron Smelt took up most of the day.. The fire pit was examined after having burned down completely to ash. It was obvious the ore had reached high temperatures with one or two having cracked and having changed color with some iron starting to convert. We removed the large pieces by hand then used a magnet with a release to separate the smallest pieces/particles from the ash. Most importantly now hitting the ore with a mallet it broke apart with much less force being required.
We also continued with preparing the charcoal needed by breaking two more large bags of hardwood charcoal into walnut sized pieces. That makes 3 bags done with 5 more to go. Not a difficult job but time consuming.
We met with our latest volunteer – Janice , going over the materials and classes and Viking education sections she will be doing . Currently that is Viking Age navigation using a Sun stone as well as the Rune alphabet.
Last we layered the pressed out gray clay pieces alternating the layers with red clay powder we had sifted.. With a large plastic mortar mixing tray filled almost to the top we then covered it in water to sit and soak in overnight. This softened clay mix will be used today to build the furnace walls.
10/13 – Plan was to build furnace but the clay mix had not fully absorbed all the water with sections of it still not fully softened.. So spent hours with a spade mixing it all to a smooth sticky clay mix.. Unfortunately the temps at night will be close to freezing after today so this was a major setback.
The mixing was physically demanding and it looked like rain was moving in so put off trying to build furnace walls. We did put down a layer of mason sand where furnace will be for fire safety. We also have the metal form we will use to help with shaping the furnace.
Another bag of lump charcoal was smashed into smaller pieces. We have two more bags to do but may get another to use while drying and heating up furnace for smelt. We spent some time smashing ore as well. It is really amazing what a difference roasting the rocks makes toward their breaking apart.
This evening as we did last night we will be grinding organic rye berries to use in making Viking bread for the festival.
10/14 – We didn’t work on furnace walls due to wind coming in. Good decision given rain also arrived with cold front.
We did before the wind and rain hit smash another bag of lump charcoal so only 2 more to go.
The big task we got done by moving it to a wind free and dry area was smashing all of the iron ore we had roasted in the fire pit.. Some of the pieces (rocks) were quite large but they broke up with minimal effort now. The largest took 5 hits with a mallet to break up into 6 small ones.
10/16 – Did some time consuming tasks today .. mowed the front festival area again. Also cleaned, peeled, chopped, and otherwise prepared root vegetables that will be used to make an authentic Viking Skause.
Asked and received confirmation to be able to use Ferguson Funeral Homes parking lot if needed for festival parking overflow .. Thank YOU!
Put down a clay pad to build the furnace on. I added slope and guide rails to it for tapping slag from furnace when needed.
Spend some time with Janice going over the 2 classes she will be teaching. We set up 1:00 for the Sun Stone Navigation and 2:00 for the Rune Alphabet classes. Additionally she will be bringing runes to do readings if time allows.
Finished breaking up hardwood lump charcoal needed for smelt
10/17 – May not be able to do smelt on Sat at festival. I had to bake this morning. I started on clay after that and just finished final mixing of it.. It didn’t end up being as much as I had calculated more importantly it already is 4:30 and am exhausted.. Will rest for a few and see how it goes. Lots of other tasks need to be done including more baking for festival with only tomorrow to do them.
There currently is a FIRE Danger warning preventing use of fire pit and furnace.
I did update the site plan for this years vendors/activities while baking this morning but need to upload it to site.
10/20 – It was a beautiful day for the festival. We’d like to thank our vendors – A Touch of Glass .. and then some, Hellion Handicrafts, Finely Crafted. We also would like to thank educational presenters – Olaf of the North (Slavic Invasion) and Janice (local teacher at various schools/colleges). We want to thank our volunteers and food servers – Marika and Kane. Last but not least we would like to thank those of you that came to this year’s festival .. hope you enjoyed it and thank you for helping us raising funds for Northern NJ Veterans Memorial Cemetery.
Due to fire restrictions we held off on using/showing the smelting of iron ore in a hand made furnace like the Vikings did. The foundation’s intention is to still do this since all of the preparation of ore, charcoal, furnace is done. Rather than just doing it as an individual, and since the weather looks good through next weekend, LSF will do this as an educational participation activity next Sat Oct 26th. As long as forecast and restrictions allow this is the plan.. This will allow us to complete the educational video of this process including removal and processing of an iron bloom.