Life on the Whoop Up Trail draws audiences into Southern Alberta history

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 If you are looking  for something unique to do on a Wednesday night , Fort Whoop Up and New West Theatre have a unique program running until the end of August.
 Wednesday nights are radNick Bohle performs in Trader Tales at fort Whoop Up throughout Augist. Photo by Richard Ameryio show nights and therefore pretty much sacred, so I had to cut short my visit to Fort Whoop Up’s “Life on the Whoop Up Trail.
 Local actor/ writer Andrew Legg has designed a unique dinner theatre exploring the stories of some of the wild characters thriving in Fort Whoop Up Circa 1871 at an interesting cusp in Southern Alberta history, where good money could be made trading whiskey and supplies for buffalo robes with local Blackfoot tribes, w but just as the Northwest Mounted Police  have arrived to try to stop the whiskey trade.


 The  program, which runs 6-9 p.m., lets you step  back in time and meet some of these characters. It begins with a tour of all of the rooms of the newly renovated Fort Whoop up, a meal of stew and chili and one free drink.


 They have buffalo robes on hand so you can pretend to sell them to the “trader” working in the fort and listen to his stories about what is it like to live in an isolated fort in the dead of winter when all of the trading happened, three weeks from anywhere, with nothing to do except wait for wagons full of supplies to arrive to load and unload.


 I was only able to stay for the tour and the meal and missed performances from New West Theatre Actors DJ Gellatly, Ali Price and Nick Bohl.
 Tickets are $80.

— By Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor
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