Fort Vancouver Cultural Landscape Report

Site

General Description

By 1846, the Fort Vancouver farm was a collection of clustered features, organized functionally, and based on naturally occurring resources. Fields were located on open lands which could be cultivated, and later on land which could be cleared of existing trees and cultivated. Structures were frequently placed in or near the fields, usually barns or sheds which held the seasons' harvests. Mills were located on streams debouching into the Columbia River, and structures were built near them--not only the mill buildings, but houses for workers, and additional sheds. A dairy, with associated structures, a fishery, and a piggery, were other clusters. The 1829 fort stockade, with stores, warehouses, offices and residences for the officers of the Company, formed the heart of the operation, and was gradually surrounded by buildings and agricultural features serving the entire depot: schoolhouses, stables, a cemetery, a church (after 1845), garden, orchard, and cultivated fields. To the west was a village where the Company's employees lived (later referred to as Kanaka Village), a collection of widely scattered residences, some with enclosed gardens. South of the Village residences, and southwest of the fort was another cluster of structures around a pond which fed directly into the Columbia. Most of these were utilitarian structures--ox and horse stables, cooper's shop, saw and tanning pits. The southern edge of this cluster included the salmon house (store), which led directly to the wharf, a warehouse, the hospital and the salt house. Scattered between these sites were various miscellaneous structures, principally employees' houses.

The principal clusters were located in naturally occurring open meadows in the forest, and along the Columbia River: Fort Plain, Lower Plain, Mill Plain, the sawmill, the gristmill, and a series prairies located in the forest north and east of the Fort Plain, referred to as the Back Plains, including First Plain, Second Plain, Third Plain, Fourth Plain, and Camas Plain. [418] These names were in general use in the 1830s, and although additional fields were cultivated and new structures erected, the overall organization and use of these open spaces remained the same throughout this historic period.

Fort Plain's topography and boundaries were discussed in the previous section. In 1846, Fort Plain included the stockade; garden; orchard; a number of cultivated fields, general farm and community oriented structures, and scattered residences; what is now called Kanaka Village; and the river front complex, which included the hospital, salmon store, salt house, and other buildings.

Lower Plain, west and northwest of Fort Plain, was an immense open plain, roughly triangular in shape, bounded on the east by the finger of forest separating it from Fort Plain; the forest extended to the northern edge of the plain. In the north of the plain was "Big Lake," (now Vancouver Lake) a somewhat circular lake, approximately two miles in diameter at that time, from which the "Lake River" sprang, forming the northwest boundary of the plain as it ran to the Columbia River, which formed the south and southwest edge of the plain. A finger of the lake extended south (it shows southeast on the 1844 map), forming a narrow strip of open meadow to the east of it, between one-half and three-quarters of a mile in width, in which fenced fields were laid out, certainly by the mid 1830s. Throughout most of this period, cattle, horses and sheep were pastured in the unfenced open plain, which stretched in a narrow band between river and forest for miles down river to the junction with the Lewis River. There were two more lakes on the plain: Chalifoux Lake, and another, smaller lake to the north of it. In the southeast corner, a dairy, with enclosures and structures, and a piggery with enclosures and structures, and several cultivated fields along the river were located.

Mill Plain, approximately three miles east of the Fort Plain, was an opening in the forest, approximately four miles long and three-quarters of a mile wide, which included the Mill Plain Farm, consisting, in 1844, of enclosed fields and barns. About one and one-half miles south of Mill Plain Farm, and about two and one-half miles from the edge of Fort Plain, was the Gristmill, located near the Columbia River, on a north-south stream feeding the river. About one mile east of the gristmill, was the sawmill, also on a stream feeding into the Columbia. To the northeast of Fort Plain was a series of forest openings making up the Back Plains, of which Fourth Plain was by far the largest First Plain was about two miles from the north edge of Fort Plain; Second Plain a mile beyond that, Third Plain approximately one-half mile beyond Second Plain, and Fourth Plain about a mile beyond Third Plain. The Camas Plain was at least another mile beyond.

The natural vegetation in the region west of the Cascade Range during the historic period was described by Reverend Samuel Parker, at Fort Vancouver in the mid-30s:

The cedar is the common species, grows VERY large and tall, and is the best of any of the forest trees for various mechanical uses. The yew is also found among the evergreens, though it is scarce...The tamarisk is found in small sections of the country. The white oak is of good quality, and often large, is a common tree of the forests, and also the black, rough-barked oak, grows in some of the mountainous parts. In an excursion down the rich plains below Fort Vancouver, where there are trees scattered about like shade trees upon a well cultivated farm, I measured a white oak, which was eight feet in diameter, continued large about thirty feet high, and then branched out immensely wide...There are two kinds of ash, the common white ash and the broad leafed. The latter is very hard. There is also alder, which I have mentioned as growing very large and on dry ground as well as that which is low and swampy. There are three species of poplar, the common aspen, the cotton and the balm...white maple...willows very common....several varieties of the thorn-bush..one species peculiar to the country west of the mountains, the fruit of which is black and of a delightful sweet taste...choke cherry...salalberry...serviceberry...the pambina is a Owyhee cranberry...gooseberry...three varieties of current...snowdrop...common raspberries...vining honeysuckle, new species of sweet elder...sweet flowering peas...small sections of red clover...strawberries are indigenous, and their flavor more delicious than any I have tasted in other countries...Wild flax...sun flowers...broom corn in the bottomlands of the Columbia...a wide grain somewhat resembling barley or rye...nutritive roots including the wappatoo and the cammas. [419]

George Simpson, on his trip up the Columbia River to Jolie Prairie in the winter of 1824-25, also described the region's vegetation: "The banks of the Columbia on both sides from Capes Disappointment and Adams to the Cascade portage a distance of from 150 to 180 Miles are covered with a great variety of fine large timber, consisting of Pine of different Kinds, of Cedar, Hemlock, Oak, Ash, Alder Maple and Poplar with many other kinds unknown to me." [420] Ten years later the Reverend Parker discussed conifers in the vicinity of the post:

I have said there are three species of fir, and that they constitute far the greatest part of the forest trees, and are very large. The three different kinds are the red, yellow, and white. They not only differ in the color of the wood, but also in their foliage. The foliage of the red is scattered on all sides of the branchlets in the same form as those found in the United States; the yellow only on the upper side, or the upper half of the twigs; the white is oppositely pinnated. The balsam is alike in the three different species, found in blisters upon the bark in the same form as in other countries. [421]