Dear Liza,
After our delicious lunch at Twigs in Vancouver, we got in our cars and headed just a little out of town to visit historic Fort Vancouver. This was first founded by the British in the 1820s as a way of protecting their settlers in the area when this part of the Pacific Northwest was claimed by England, along with the rest of Canada.
The fort was home to hundreds of soldiers, merchants, and indigenous people, along with native Hawaiian craftsmen hired to keep the fort running. It was a very diverse population for its time.
In 1846, after a shift in the border between Canada and the US, the English abandoned the Fort Vancouver and American troops took over. They let the fort fall into disrepair and it eventually burned down under not-so-mysterious circumstances.
The Fort Vancouver we can walk around in today is a 1970s reconstruction, based in maps and descriptions from the 1820s. Still, it lets us see what life was like for all those folks so many years ago.
This thick, cool arbor made for fine summer shade and grapes to be harvested in the fall.
The bakery must have been kept busy all day making biscuits for travelers as well as bread for the hundreds of folks at the Fort.
The view from the bastion tower was very cool. I hope they never had to fire this one! It’s pointed into the fort!
Grandpa Nelson and I walked around the 1976 reconstruction of the old fort, which was enclosed by pointy wooden ramparts. It included a replica of First Factor Dr. McLoughlin’s beautiful house and buildings for the bakery, the jail, the infirmary (doctor’s office) .
On that hot afternoon, we could certainly sympathize with the soldiers who had been stationed here, exposed to heat and cold, rain and snow, with only thin wooden walls between them and the elements.
The gardens and livestock were outside the gates, where there is now a lovely, well kept flower and vegetable garden. I imagine it was a bit more rustic when every drop of water had to be carried by bucket. Still, the dahlias were gorgeous.
There are other sections of Fort Vancouver, including stately officers’ houses from the World War II era when General John Marshall was in charge here, but we didn’t visit those. We ran out of oomph and went for ice cream at Ice Cream Renaissance , then said good-bye to dear Julie and Carl and headed back across the river to have a nice rest at home.
Love,
Grandma Judy
Dear Liza 