[OR_Archaeology] NEW HOUSE AND LANDSCAPE DISCOVERED AT FT. VANCOUVER

[Susan White]

NEW HOUSE AND LANDSCAPE DISCOVERED AT SITE IN VANCOUVER, WA 

National Park Service and University archaeologists have discovered one
of the homes of the multi-cultural village associated with Fort
Vancouver. The Village was home for 600 to 1000 Hudson’s Bay Company
(HBC) employees, their families, and visiting traders and travelers
during the fur trade period. 

“Explorations in this house and its surrounding landscape will shed
new light on the lives of the diverse population that served this
colonial capital of the Pacific Northwest in the 1830s and 1840s,”
said Doug Wilson, National Park Service Archaeologist and Faculty Member
of the Department of Anthropology at Portland State University. Wilson,
who is directing the field school that is excavating the site,
identified tiny glass trade beads, buttons, musket balls, bottle glass,
and colorful Spode transfer print ceramics as evidence of the house and
its immediate surroundings. “The people living in the village, in
contrast to the “gentlemen” and their families inside the fort, left
no written records. This excavation is a way to recover the history of
this incredible community, which included people of many ancestries:
American Indians from many tribes, Native Hawaiians, French Canadians,
Europeans, Americans, and those of multiethnic origin - the Métis.” 

The Public Archaeology field school is a partnership of the Fort’s
Northwest Cultural Resources Institute with Portland State University,
Washington State University Vancouver, supported by grants from NPS and
the Fort Vancouver National Trust. 

Related to the field school, a new program at the Fort is bringing
urban youth and families to the fort, to provide a hands-on experience
with activities from the 19th century, to learn about the science of
archaeology, and reconnect to the diverse
histories of the Pacific Northwest through a series of day and
overnight camps. “This program demonstrates how diversity is not
something new to the Pacific Northwest,” said Ranger Kimm
Fox-Middleton. “The history and archaeology at Fort Vancouver shows us
how people of many different cultures worked together and interacted in
the past. We want to show kids that the history of the Pacific Northwest
is for
everyone.” 

The field school will run one more week at the Village site until July
24, 2010. The Village is west of the Fort Vancouver reconstruction north
of the Vancouver Land Bridge. The public is welcome to visit Tuesday
through Saturday, from 9:00 am to 4:00 p.m.  The urban youth program
will continue through September. Contact for
the Urban youth program: Kimm Fox-Middleton, 360.816.6243.