Fort Vancouver Cultural Landscape Report

Site
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Fort Plain

The greatest alterations to the landscape during this period occurred on Fort Plain. By 1849-50, Archibald McKinlay said it, "...with the exception of the fort and its immediate outbuildings, the orchards and two or three hundred acres of enclosed land, was in the occupation of settlers and the military were camped and erecting buildings on the land back of the fort." [928] By 1860, except for the fields in the immediate vicinity of the fort, and a few fields along Upper Mill Road, most of the cultivable areas on Fort Plain had fallen into the hands of squatters. The army had the most significant impact on the landscape within the immediate vicinity of the stockade. By 1859 many new roads had been established; what was virtually a new settlement--in the form of army barracks and associated structures, a large parade ground, and several military activity centers in the area of Kanaka Village and the river front--had sprung into existence in an eleven year span. To the west, Vancouver City, platted in 1850, was growing. Virtually across the street from the Company stockade, the Catholic church--or mission--had expanded--with a number of buildings, including two schools by 1860; a garden, and an orchard, located within a fenced enclosure of a little less than five acres. As army, town and the mission features were erected, those of the Hudson's Bay Company began to disappear.

The artist Paul Kane, commissioned by Sir George Simpson to visually record Hudson's Bay Company posts, described the vicinity of the farm and stockade as it appeared in the winter of 1846-47: "...the surrounding country is well wooded and fertile, the oak and pine being of the finest description." The camas and "wappatoo", he said, "are found in immense quantities in the plains in the vicinity of Fort Vancouver, and in the spring of the year present a most curious and beautiful appearance, the whole surface presenting an uninterrupted sheet of bright ultra-marine blue, from the innumerable blossoms of these plants." [929]