Van Wagner to headline June 18 “Renovo Area Heritage Days” events

By Christopher Miller

RENOVO, PA – Renovo Area Heritage Days will be officially “kicking off” next Thursday, June 16 at 6pm.

This year on Saturday, June 18 Van Wagner, a very popular addition to the event last year, will be back in Renovo at 1pm outside of the Renovo Area Heritage Park Museum presenting a program involving the demonstration of antique tools used by loggers in the 1800s.

“These tools were used to harvest White Pine and then assemble rafts to be floated to market,” Van explained in an interview with The Record. “This is not the same thing as “log drives” which came later and involved the floating of logs to Williamsport…rafting was more of an independent land owner activity, and the destination was usually Marietta in Lancaster County.”

In fact, Van spent some time a few years ago building a log raft and floating it down the Susquehanna.

“Books and photos will only get you so far, I like getting the hands-on experience with a subject such as rafting…I wanted to feel what it was like to navigate a 120 foot raft down river, and by the way – no words can express how it felt or how it changed my life,” Van said.

Van is not a stranger to logging, nor is he without experience in the field. “I was a logger in Idaho…my wife took a job with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Boise and I found work in the woods to keep busy,” he said. “When I wasn’t logging, I found work at a local sawmill. Some people found it off that a logger could be married to a federal environmental regulator, but it worked out just fine for us,” he joked.

Van is compelled to tell the stories of “days gone by” because he finds that understanding our heritage helps him understand life today.

“Our story as a nation is built upon these many local histories, and the story of the Susquehanna Raftsmen is a big part of the story of who we are as the United States of America,” he said.

Specifically, logging and rafting heritage is to educate people on the fact that log rafting was a different part of our history, with very distinct stories than log drives and railroad logging.

As well, Van will be touching on the story of the Bucktails in his program.

“They were a group of local men who volunteered for the Union in the Civil War…they were told to report to a train station along the upper branches of the river and they did, but an interesting problem at the time was that the railroad had not advanced that far yet,” Van quipped. “So the men flagged down log rafts on their way down river and caught a ride to where the train had advanced to…many of these men were backwoodsman, loggers, and raftsmen and the legend was they wore white tail deer tails on the backs of their caps.”

Those who have encountered Van in the past know that he is quite the musician, involving a mix of traditional songs and songs that he has written. “I like to use music as a way to connect modern people to the people I am discussing…here we are 150 years later and yet we can still enjoy the same songs they did.”

Van’s program will celebrate the importance of the West Branch of the Susquehanna River and its important place in the history of Pennsylvania and the United States.

“My program will celebrate this importance and help the folks realize how special the Renovo area is in the story of American forest history.”

 

Greater Renovo Area Heritage Park
Heritage Days Schedule of Events

Thursday, June 16
•6:00 p.m. Proclamation at the Borough Building
•7:00 – 8:00 p.m. General Grant about Railroad during Civil War outside at the Renovo Area Heritage Park Museum

Friday, June 17
•7:00 – 8:00 p.m. General Grant about his service during the Civil War (1865) outside at the Renovo Area Heritage Park Museum

Saturday, June 18
•11:00 a.m. Railroad Mural Dedication at Lingle’s Neighborhood Market
•1:00 p.m. Van Wagner outside at the Renovo Area Heritage Park Museum
•12:00 – 6:00 p.m. QR Quest around town beginning outside at the Renovo Area Heritage Park Museum
•12:00 – 6:00 p.m. Basket Raffle outside at the Renovo Area Heritage Park Museum