French Voyageur fur trader Henri found himself among standing room only at the Packer-Hammersmith Center for a living history presentation earlier this month.

Henri, who wears a ring in his nose and an ostrich feather in his hat, is portrayed by Tim Kreps, a retired Sylvania Southview High School history teacher.

It was part of Pearson Metropark’s annual Black Swamp Festival, which allows visitors to “spend a day at the swamp.” Kreps was asked to give his presentation by Friends of Pearson Park volunteer Mary Breymaier, who saw Henri at a school on Toledo’s west side.

Re-enactor Tim Kreps portrayed Henri, a French fur trader at the annual Black Swamp Festival held at Pearson Metro Park. (Press photo by Ken Grosjean)

“She seemed to appreciate the program and the kids and other teachers did. We knew that we could make a connection through telling the story and getting them involved in some songs and part of the program,” Kreps said.

Kreps said the feedback from his presentation at Pearson was tremendous.

“The people kept coming in and didn’t leave until the end,” Kreps said.

His presentation allows those attending to become part of a fur trade encampment where they will see artifacts and furs that were traded for the “modern conveniences” of the time. 

He brings a vanload of Indian artifacts, furs and trade items. Some, like his rifle, were made from scratch by Kreps. After seeing his “hands on” presentation, Kreps says you will never forget how loud a flintload rifle shot is, how magically a fire is started with flilnt and steel or how warm the capote was you wore in the style show.

Kreps retired from teaching in 2002 after a 33-year career that included numerous statewide and local awards. Henri is just one of a variety of characters he now portrays. The fur trader was the first he developed while teaching a local history course at Southview.

“Then I began to take it out to classrooms — my wife’s fourth grade classroom and it just grew from there,” Kreps said. “Then I developed other characters in an historical reenactment type of thing.

“I do Lewis and Clark with a friend in their own words. I do a woodworker, a pilgrim, and a historical Mark Twain and then segment that into what I call ‘A River Runs Through It.’ There, I talk about how river waters were cleaned and swimming holes were common and get into the pollution of today and into environmental issues.”

Kreps said during the fur trader demonstration he finds out that guests don’t seem to understand how much the French impacted this area.

“They just don’t realize how much of what we have in our language today and in our backgrounds that had to do with the French.

“I throw in half a dozen French words and speak with the accent. I’m able to pull off well enough sometimes I get students who say, ‘I love your command of the French language.’ I got a thank you from a class one time, and I read that one out loud to my wife and we both cracked up.

“For instance, I usually bring along for that presentation, and I wear it for the Lewis and Clark presentation, a beaver-felt round hat, not a wolf-felt round hat. The beaver in this area was, of course, the drawing power of all the European countries — the Dutch at first on the east coast and then the French and the English and it eventually morphed into the French and Indian War where sides were fighting over the beaver just so everybody in Europe could have it. King Louis XIV wore a beaver-felt hat and that was high style,” Kreps said.

“We point out that little babies, grandparents, and mothers and fathers were all killed just so that everybody in Europe could have this hat. Because I’m a time traveler, I say that’s like in your time period there are resources that people are fighting over and dying over, like oil. We make that connection for sure.

“We talk about the rifle and go through a loading process so that we can get the terms out. We’re talking about when you are loading it, ramming it home with the ram-rod, when you have everything to make the rifle, you have ‘everything lock, stock, and barrel,’

“We talk about how heavy the lead is and if you ever heard anybody say, ‘Hurry up, get the lead out, get on over here.’

“There are all parts of the rifle, like when you pull it back into the half-cocked position and load the priming powder into the pan, and then you see a deer, and you want to bring home some supper, and you pull the trigger and in your excitement, nothing happens — it just goes click and nothing sparks. Why? Because you ‘went off half-cocked.’ If you do have the spark and it ignites but doesn’t go through the hole and to the back of the barrel, it’s ‘all show and no go’ or ‘a flash in the pan.’

“We talk about the trade itself and go through a little demonstration with a little girl in the audience — try to find someone who has hair that’s long enough and kind of parted down the middle.

“I talk about how you would butcher this white-tailed deer and scrape the hair off of one side and the guts off the other. You need to break up the skull and boil the brains, and load the brains and out onto the hide and walk onto it in your bare feet and let the brains come up through the toes.”

There was entertainment, nature walks, and children’s activities at the one-day festival. Kreps was not the only one portraying one of Northwest Ohio’s early settlers.

During a nearby open house at the Metroparks’ most recently restored historic structure, the 19th Century Johlin Cabin, Black Swamp heritage sprung to life when settlers from Northwest Ohio’s founding era returned. Characters recounted their riveting journey from Pennsylvania to Ohio and the obstacles they faced living in the untamed swamp — a historical vignette that weaves history with theatre.

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