fort langley | FindPenguins

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August 26, 2018
fort langley Traveler
making a barrel
August 26, 2018 in Canada ⋅ 🌧 13 °C
Damian and I tried our hand at barrel making in the cooperage. In the spring when Barb and I visited the gentlemen in here he was a wealth of information, but he wasn't here today so it must have been his day off. Making those barrels was quite tricky. They had different wood shaving tools to form the wood concave, convex and straight edges. they had lots of long strips of twigs to form the rings. also had iron rings. They and to be waterproof for transportation and they were round because it was easier to roll a barrel with one employee than having to lift a heavy box with 2...
The barrels staves were made of white pine....stave lake is named for the source of the staves. it is our native white pine -pinus monticola- that is the pine used
the barrels were used to ship salmon to Hawaii. also cranberries and potatoes.
the Hawaiians wanted our salmon as the HBC ships stopped at Hawaii along with all the other European nations that were plying the pacific ocean as part of the china trade. in Hawaii the dutch like the salmon so initially the salmon was destined to be sold to them, but the Hawaiian islanders also wanted the salmon as it was a coloured flesh. there is a legend in Hawaii about how all the fish there no longer had coloured flesh due to something that the islanders did to anger the gods. The gods turned all their fish flesh to white. so a lucrative trade was made between the Hawaiian islands and the HBC fort. George Siimspon the governor of the HBC was always about making money. ALL the HBC forts had to be self sufficient in his eyes so all had farms associated with them, and they and to trade to pay for themselves.Read more
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damian building the fort
August 26, 2018 in Canada ⋅ 🌧 13 °C
The fort was built in 1827, but back then this was very much the wilds of western north America. The rockies were a natural barrier. Lots of first nation villages up and down the rivers and where they gathered summer berries, fished, hunted, but nothing like Europe. This was very much the wild and you had to be totally self sufficient. The first europeans had to rely on their peaceful associations with first nations or they all would have died. If it wasn't for the first nations groups showing them how to live on the land they would not have made it. The HBC encouraged their employees to marry into the first nations families and those that did tended to be successful in living here. Their wives taught them how to gather food, where to find fish, how to trade peacefully.
This hands on exhibit shows the notched out up rights that made it easy to put in the boards without using nails. nails were a valuable community when you are out in the bush. apparently many settlers would burn down their cabins to gather the iron nails if they were going to move house. First nations houses were made using similar technology but they would have their boards held in place with cedar rope.
we had to make sure that the boards overlapped to allow the rain to flow away from the structure. First nations did the same from an exhibit we saw up in Whistler.Read more
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Panning for gold
August 26, 2018 in Canada ⋅ 🌧 15 °C
Damian tries his hand at panning for gold

In 1858 Gold was discovered on the Fraser River and there was a literal overnight onslaught of miners, the 49's, who came up from the California gold fields which were now almost played out. They arrived in Victoria then made their way across the straight of Georgia (or now the Salish Sea) in whatever boats they could get a hold of and they got themselves up the Fraser river fast. It was this onslaught of americans coming in into British territory that stimulated the Colony of British Columbia to be proclaimed. Judge Mathew Begbie swore in James Douglas to be the governor of the colony on nov 19 1858 at Fort Langley. In the rain.....

James Douglas had been a former Chief Factor at Fort Vancouver in Vancouver Washington, and also at Fort Victoria when it was decided that HBC needed to move their headquarters on the west coast into undisputed British Territory in 1843. The columbia river was looking like it may be the border between America and British territory....eventually it would be the 49th parallel , the Oregon boundary dispute settled in 1846.

In 1866 the colony of BC and the Colony of Van Island merged and the capitol was now at Victoria. Douglas would be be the first premier.

1871 was when BC joined Confederation......after the promise of a railway through the rockies.....CPR historyRead more
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the beaver hat box
August 26, 2018 in Canada ⋅ 🌧 15 °C
The beaver hat that started everything......fur traders coming out looking for more beavers due to the fashion in Europe of gentlemen wearing beaver hats........

when this fashion trend stops. and silk becomes the next big thing, there will no longer be a market for those beaver pelts.

HBC forts had to diversify and Fort Langley was able to ship salmon and farm produce, cranberries over to Hawaii for the Europe Ships that stopped there over winter, and for the locals as well.Read more
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damian carries the fur bales
August 26, 2018 in Canada ⋅ 🌧 15 °C
these bales were very heavy 60-90lb. I believe the packers would carry 2 bales via straps across their forehead.

Behind Damian is the fur press that compacts them all down to a size that was semi manageable.Read more
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Beautiful Coast Salish Blanket
August 26, 2018 in Canada ⋅ ☁️ 15 °C
This is the Flying Goose pattern.

We saw a great exhibit on Coast Salish Weaving in the spring at MOA.

They raised a special type of dog where they would gather their fur, then spin it and mix it with duck down and a bit of silt to make it stick. The blankets were beautiful. The spindle whorls were also lovely and today Susan Point has many beautiful Spindle whorl designs in public places, whistler, Vancouver, Victoria. See here for an interesting link.
http://uvac.uvic.ca/gallery/salishcurriculum/co…Read more
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Kapa - hawaiian bark cloth
August 26, 2018 in Canada ⋅ ☁️ 15 °C
This was in the Servants cabin where there were 3 different cubicles belong to 3 different ethnic groups. Scots, Metis and Hawaiian or Kanaka. This was roughly showing the different ethnic groups that made up the HBC employees roster. The majority of them had Kwantlen wives.

The Scots man was from the Orkneys and was named Robertson......Maybe a long lost relative of mine as my grandpa was a Robertson from the Orkneys, but most of his siblings came to Canada just before WW1 or just after. He came out after and he was the youngest.

We have seen these bark cloth blankets in Hawaii. They are made from the Paper mulberry tree which we can grow in Vancouver, and there is one at Van Dusen - Broussonetia papyrifera or Wauke. The beautiful pattern is made by dipping a bamboo "stamp" into a dye, and pressing it onto the bark cloth. The cloth itself is the inner bark soaked and pounded out prior to make it supple and stretched. Special tools and techniques are used by the Hawaians.

There is a hawaiian legend associated with the Wauke (paper mulberry) and the Goddess Hina. "in ancient times the sun travelled so fast across the horizon that the goddess Hina did not have time for her Kapa to dry. Realizing this, her demigod son Maui went to the place where the sun rises, on the crest of Mount Haleakala, He waited and watched as the first rays of the sun came up an he lassoed them thereby slowing down the sun for his mom. -source Kahanu garden booklet, National Tropical Botanical Garden Hana Maui -

See here for article about modern Kapa makers. ( https://mauimagazine.net/beauty-in-the-bark/Read more
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Trip end
August 26, 2018