Tag Archives: World Atlatl Association

Silver River Knapin Cancelled!

The Silver River Knapin has been cancelled for 2024. We will try to set up an atlatl contest in the Gainesville, Florida area. Watch for updates.

Silver River sent out the following annoucement:

,”After a lot of consideration, we have made the difficult decision to cancel the Silver River Knap-In and Prehistoric Arts festival this weekend due to the persistent rainy weather forecast on Saturday and Sunday. We know from experience this will result in a very low attendance. We rely on gate admission income to cover event expenses.
The event will not be rescheduled but we do plan to hold it as normal in 2025. We apologize for this but we wanted to notify everyone in advance so that plans could be changed.
There is another knap-in the following weekend near the Flint River in Georgia. For more information about that event please contact John Lane at flintriverknapin@gmail.com.
If you are from out of state and are in need of camping accommodations this weekend, please call me here at the museum so that we can discuss options with you (352) 236-5401.
Thank you all and we are sorry for any problems this causes.”
Ph. (352) 236-5401
www.SilverRiverMuseum.comThunderbird Atlatl will be at the Silver River Knapin at Silver River State Park February 17 & 18.

Get Ready World Atlatl Day on June 2! Many Events Planned!

World Atlatl Day is June 2. It is a great time to meet new atlatl friends and join in atlatl fun. There are events planned in New York, Connecticut, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Ohio, Missouri and Dublin, Ireland.

The first Saturday in June is designated as World Atlatl Day by the World Atlatl Association. World Atlatl Day (WAD) was initiated by Linda Brundage and the New York Atlatl Association in 2011. Due to its popularity, the WAA membership attending the 2012 Annual Meeting voted to officially recognize the first Saturday in June of each year as World Atlatl Day.

Contact information can be found on the World Atlatl Association website.

Joining the World Atlatl Association is a great way to keep track about events in your area and to meet fellow atlatlists.

Off to a busy start for the new year!

Looking forward to 2023, the Thunderbird Atlatl staff is setting up our calendar and planning trips for the year! We already were able to travel to Ohio earlier this month for a project with Kent State University. We had a great time with Kent State students and staff with a research project involving stone and copper projectile hafted on atlatl darts.

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Stone Points on darts for testing
Copper Points on darts for testing
We appreciated the help of students using atlatls to cast many darts for research on what turned out to be a rather rainy day.

We will post links to the research results as papers and results are published.

Student volunteer casts dart while another volunteer records data under an umbrella
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Bob Berg casting atlatl dart with velocity being measured in background.

Atlatl & Dart Kit Building- great winter time activity

Atlatl and dart building workshops are a great way to spend your winter hours! Thunderbird Atlatl offers several types of atlatl and dart kits in our online catalog.

With kits, you are able to save money and finish your own atlatl the way you want. You can put your own personal imprint or design on an atlatl you made. Fletching darts can be a little tricky but we offer videos on both finishing our atlatl kits and fletching

Kits can be purchased individually or if you have a group of five or more, we offer bulk rates for kits. Give us a call at 1-800-836-4520 or email us at contact@thunderbirdatlatl.com for more information.

In the pictures below, Interpretive Naturalist Kelley Morgan offers an atlatl & dart building workshop at Mounds State Park in Anderson, Indiana. Thank you Kelley for the pictures and for leading the workshops. More information about programs offered by the Indiana department of Natural Resources-Division of State Parks can be found on their webpage.

Video: Atlatl Fishing for Sheepshead in Florida

We have just put up a new atlatl fishing video from this year’s trip to Florida. Bob takes his atlatl and harpoon out to the piers near Dunedin Causeway in Tampa Bay to fish for Sheepshead – a type of shellcracker fish that eats the barnacles that grow on the piers. Bob uses his new “Canoe-Maran” boat made with Expand-A-Craft pontoons that we purchased on this trip.

Thanks to our talented son, Peter Berg, for the amazing video work, and friends, James Mead and Charles Bracken, for all their help on the fishing expeditions.

We are looking forward to spring weather. It has been a long winter in New York even with a break for the Florida shows. It is a great time to start planning your atlatl adventures for the next few months. The best way is to check out the atlatl events on the World Atlatl Association page. You and anyone in your household can join the World Atlatl Association for $15 annually. It is easy to join by going to this link. We hope to see you at an atlatl event.