Field Trip to the 14th Century
King County museum reflects rural medieval life
STORY BY EMILY WILLEMAN | PHOTO BY DANNY MILLER
Sparks fly as Quinn Wilson strikes a red-hot bar of steel with his hammer. The steady clang of metal on metal permeates the air. Clang. Clang. Clang.
“Let’s get out of here!” a nearby boy shouts at his friend, covering his ears. “It’s too loud!”
Wilson continues to strike at the metal lying on his anvil. Embers fly toward the walls of his open hut, made out of sticks woven together. His wool clothes are unprotected from the sparks. The grounds smell like a campfire, billows of smoke seeping out of stick huts similar to the one Wilson stands in.
Wilson stops striking to hold the piece of metal aloft.
“Does it looks like an arrow yet?” he asks, turning to look at the dozen pairs of eyes squinting toward the metal.
It’s not an arrowhead yet, but soon it will be an armor-piercing arrow from the hands of a blacksmith in 2015.
Wilson, 25, graduated from Western in 2012 with a degree in medieval history. Now he puts what he studied into practice as a historical interpreter at Camlann Medieval Village in Carnation, Washington, located approximately an hour’s drive east of Seattle.
He never expected to be able to directly apply his medieval history degree to a post-graduation job but chose to study it anyway, Wilson says. He was initially drawn to medieval life after finding it similar to fantasy and sci-fi worlds such as “Lord of the Rings.”
Surrounded by trees in the midst of Carnation’s farmland, Camlann is removed from the rest of the world.
As part of a living history museum, Camlann’s staff strives to recreate the life of an English village in 1376 in the most accurate way possible. The buildings are made from mud and sticks, but just outside Camlann’s entrance, historical interpreters — reenactors — spend their break time chowing down on fast-food and checking their phones while wearing period-specific garb.
Fewer than a dozen buildings connected by well-worn outdoor pathways make up the museum, including the village scribe’s room, filled with long white quills and the scent of decaying paper, and the seamstress’s hut, where bags of neatly shorn fleece from the neighboring sheep lay.
Wilson worked full-time for two years as Camlann’s volunteer coordinator before recently moving into a volunteer position so he could move from Carnation to Seattle. He now works in a specialty archery shop, applying what he learned about bows from Camlann on a day-to-day basis.
Wilson is skilled enough to represent a variety of village trades. He can make shoes from start to finish, shoot arrows straight into the bull’s-eye, mold clay into pots and perform a variety of other medieval trades. Although Wilson is capable, it’s unusual for someone in England during 1376 to do so many different things, he says, so today he sticks with being a blacksmith — turning rods of metal into arrowheads and hooks with the expert slam of his hammer as wide-eyed children look on in awe. Clang. Clang. Clang.