Travel Time at Whiskey Flat Days
By Catherine Stachowiak, For Scenic 395
Have you ever fantasized about traveling through time? The thought of time travel is a portal to excitement and adventure. The future is still an unknown mystery. Yet the past is another story…history. Although history cannot be changed, believe it or not, it can be relived.
Think about those old western movies you like, or the books you read, about bygone eras. Those types of stories warm the heart and peak one’s curiosity.
Well, suppose you could actually go back in time, to the Wild West. What could be more exciting than traveling the U.S., out west, to the wild frontier, where there used to be plentiful cattle ranching, gold mining, black smiths, and horse shoeing, boot legging whisky, mule traveling rather than cars, and people like Buffalo Bill horseback riding the dusty roads in cowboy boots? Wouldn’t it be interesting seeing all these scenes while listening to period correct music, from an immigrant wagon, and drinking Chuck Wagon coffee? How about the idea of learning Native American Indian culture through living history? Could you imagine all these things, along with listening to old tales of mining days, right from the history books, and viewing tomahawk throwing?
Apparently all is not lost, friends. Folks can still experience all this adventure, and a lot more, according to the people who bring Whiskey Flat Days and the Whiskey Flat Encampment to the town of Kernville, California.
The location is in Kern County, not more than an hour from the cities of Bakersfield and Ridgecrest.
The new president of the Kernville Chamber of Commerce, Gary Ananian, previously helped round up volunteers and sponsors to rebuild the old Whiskey Flat Encampment area. And after the previous year’s brutal storms, rebuilding the encampment was a daunting task. Founder and Producer of the Whiskey Flat Encampment, Mike Woodward, along with others in the chamber and the community, pitched in with heavy equipment and tons of road material to bring the 8-acre Whiskey Flat Encampment back to life.
Ananian, a former Whiskey Flat Mayor, told Scenic 395, “The Whiskey Flat Encampment is probably the best representation of Old Wild West heritage and culture here in the Kern River Valley. I think it’s the best attraction that we offer. It’s historical and people get to learn a lot about the history and the culture in the Kern River Valley. I think the encampment is our greatest asset for Whiskey Flat Days. Without the encampment there is no Whiskey Flat Days.”
Apparently schoolteachers agree with Ananian about its educational value. The local schools take students for field trips to the encampment.
Keeping in mind that upon your travels back in time, to the 68th annual Whiskey Flat Days, Rhinestones & Wranglers event, you will find much more than the Whiskey Flat Encampment. The chamber has prepared other family fun and entertainment, for President’s Day Weekend, February 14 through February 17, 2025. For example you may decide to enjoy a rodeo and a carnival with rides, or peruse many interesting craft and food vendors. Bring your date to enjoy a Whiskey Flat Street Dance, on Valentine’s Day, with a DJ. Come listen to the popular southern rock and outlaw country band, Angels Roost, perform some live music. Decide to view a melodrama. Watch a parade and come see an old west shootout. Enter a costume contest or a whiskerino contest. Bring your pet to enter a pet parade. Come to see an Iron Horse (motorcycle) Rodeo.
The town of Kernville, and the rest of the Kern Valley, has some great saloons, gift shops, galleries, and a myriad of excellent lodging accommodations. Recreation opportunities are endless, including great fishing, camping, lake boating at Lake Isabella, Kern River rafting, hiking, rock climbing, and biking spots, parks, and skate spots. Among all these perks you may enjoy eating at some very tasty local coffee shops and eateries.
For all you seekers of cemetery adventures, come take a tour of one of the valley’s oldest cemeteries. The Kern River Valley Historical Society will be giving tours of the Kern River Valley Cemetery District’s “Old Cemetery.” District manager for the cemetery, Orion Sanders, planned this venture along with history buffs. He said, “We’re working in conjunction with the historical society. It’s a partnership that we’re going to do, for Whiskey Flat Days, providing tours of the Old Cemetery.” Keep an eye out for their tours, at the Annex, across from Kern Valley Museum.
Nevertheless, despite all these attractions, the Whiskey Flat Encampment is what stands out as the basis of Whiskey Flat Days. Ananian said, “I think people watch movies, they read books about old west culture, the Wild West and bank robbers and Indians and this kind of thing. And they visit towns like Kernville to kind of relive that vicariously. And so we offer that through the encampment. They get to go down there and go back in time when they’re walking through the encampment. And they see how things were done, how people lived, how they ate, how they drank.”
Woodward knows more, on this topic, than any man alive. He described that the encampment consists of a Cavalry Camp, a Native American “Indian” Camp, a Mountain Man Camp, Whiskey Flat Town Camp, the Mining and Black Smithing Area, and the Wild West Show of Buffalo Bill. Woodward invites the public to join with reenactors for an old fashioned Cowboy Church service, Sunday morning, at 10am.
Cowboy Church takes place at a past Whiskey Flat Days. PHOTO COURTESY of WHISKEY FLAT ENCAMPMENT FOUNDER, PRODUCER MIKE WOODWARD
Three men dressed in character interact with a pair of children at a past Whiskey Flat Days event in Kernville. Whiskey Flat Days is held each February. PHOTO COURTESY of WHISKEY FLAT ENCAMPMENT FOUNDER, PRODUCER MIKE WOODWARD
Famous independent filmmaker Chuck Barbee is the Whiskey Flat Encampment historical accuracy advisor. Barbee previously made the film Wild West Country, a documentary film about the old west history of California’s Southern Sierras and the Kern River Valley. Woodward said, “Chuck Barbee, he’s an important piece of what we do. And he’s important to lend a genuine authenticity factor to the information that we put out around the campfire as reenactors, talking first person history of the 1860s, 1870s, 1880s, and what was going on here.”
Woodward said that his team got a lot of their material out of the Bob Powers book series and Walker who was a historical figure descendant of early settlers from the 1850s. According to Woodward the books are available, at the Kern Valley Museum, in Kernville.
“We’ve had 4,000 people through our encampment, in the past, and it works just fine. And we all communicate and coordinate. How do we do it? We use a process that was used in the military back from the Civil War, the General Sherman days, and General Lee days,” Woodward said. “If they could communicate back then, without cell phones, we can too, today because we know how to do it. We have our runners, our younger kids that go back n forth. And if we need something done immediately, we get one of the younger reenactors or one of the teenagers that’s learning how to be a reenactor, to run a message from one end of the encampment to the other.
“It’s been quite fun all of the different varieties of reenactors that we attract. And we attract them from all over the United States. I’ve got one reenactor group, that comes from Texas to be with us, because its one of the most unique reenactment opportunities, for reenactors that exists out there.”
What reenactors do is relive the history of a particular era of history and persona. Woodward believes there is a distinct difference between actors and reenactors. “You live the history. You learn about it. You learn your part, who is this guy I am? And then we go out and reenact it,” he said.
The reenactors choreograph their stories and gunfights. They have historically accurate costuming. And they learn the part and practice it, over and over, until it is just right. The team puts in many hours preparing for the reenectment. “All of us meet on a regular basis. We have scripts for the various skits that we’re going to put on, as per History Encampment Advisor Chuck Barbee the expert, and documented history,” said Woodward.
Ananian said, “You go to Hollywood, people want to see the Walk of Fame. The encampment is the Walk of Fame - here. People come to Kernville; they want to see the Walk of Fame during Whiskey Flat Days. It’s the Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building. That’s what the Whiskey Flat Encampment is to us.”
Please see the Kernville Chamber page for the Whiskey Flat Days events schedule. https://www.officialwhiskeyflatdays.com.
A scene from a past Whiskey Flat Days. PHOTO COURTESY of WHISKEY FLAT ENCAMPMENT FOUNDER, PRODUCER MIKE WOODWARD