Living History

This Saturday, the 150-year-old walls of Fort Point will again echo with the sounds of fifes and drums and tramp of boots as this San Francisco landmark celebrates Civil War Living History Day. Come watch and interact with dozens of reenactors from the American Civil War Association portraying Union soldiers and civilians from the time of the War Between the States at the only Civil War-era brick fort west of the Mississippi.

Fort Point's Civil War Living History Day takes place Saturday, January 26, 2013, from 10 am to 5 pm. Activities include artillery and infantry demonstrations and performances by period military musicians. Reenactors are happy to answer questions about history and various aspects of life during the Civil War.

We've attended this event a few times (it's usually held the last weekend of January), and it always exceeds our expectations. It's exciting to march into the fort right behind the fife-and-drum band, and entering the courtyard to see only reenactors in period dress was a thrilling experience that was the next best thing to traveling back in time. If you're at all interested in the Civil War or California's history, it's an event you have to attend.

Celebrate Christmas in Victorian style this Friday at San Rafael's Falkirk Cultural Center. Join Charles Dickens, his family, and a cast of colorful 19th-century characters for a joyous evening of Victorian revelry at the elegant Falkirk Mansion.

Partake in a holiday treat as you go back in time to Victorian England and meet Dickens himself, listen to him read from his famous works like A Christmas Carol, watch his characters come alive (watch out for Scrooge), meet and greet the true Father Christmas, play Victorian parlor games, dance and sing with a Victorian family, and make traditional holiday crafts. Light food and drink will be served.

This is a family event takes place on Friday, December 2 from 6:30–9 pm. Tickets to the Dickens Family Victorian Holiday are $10 for adults and $7 for children. You can order tickets by phone at (800) 838-3006 or online at brownpapertickets.com.

Fort Point's 2011 Civil War Living History Day takes place Saturday, January 29. More details here.

Directly underneath the south end of the Golden Gate Bridge sits one of the Bay Area's most evocative and exciting attractions: Fort Point. Fort Point was constructed on the northern tip of San Francisco in the 1850s to guard the entrance to the Golden Gate. It's the only 19th-century masonry fort located east of the Mississippi, and it's been run by the National Park Service as a National Monument since 1970. It's always well worth an outing, especially if a special event such as this weekend's Civil War Living History Days happens to be taking place.

Familar to fans of the movie Vertigo (it's shown in the scene where Jimmy Stewart fishes Kim Novak out of the Bay), Fort Point is sits right underneath the southern end of the bridge and commands a superlative view of the Golden Gate and San Francisco Bay. Despite the traffic whizzing by overhead, it's not hard to imagine what this place would have been like a century and half ago when it was an active military intallation, and of course this stretch of the imagination is made easier by the living historians on hand at the fort this weekend.