Fort Vancouver Cultural Landscape Report

Site
(continued)

Circulation Networks

The principal means of access to the site was the Columbia River: supply ships from London, the Company's coastal trading ships, and military and civilian ships from trading ports came up river from the Ocean. Canoes and other river craft came downriver from the Dalles, carrying the passengers, goods, and the annual express from York Factory in Canada. Barges and boats carried people and agricultural produce from the Willamette Valley downriver on the Willamette and then up the Columbia to the Company's wharf and mills. On "short" trips north, with small amounts of goods or for general personal travel, the principal means of access was by canoe on the Little River and the Big Lake, particularly in the summer, when the water was high, from the southeast edge of Lower Plain; pack and riding animals were used at the termination point on the north to continue the journey overland.

The principal roads radiated outwards from the Fort Plain stockade. By 1844, the main route from the stockade to the river was a road which ran south along the west edge of the orchard, between the stockade complex and Kanaka Village, and terminating at the river edge where ships were usually anchored, near the salt house. Its northern terminus was Upper Mill Road, a principal east-west road through the site.

Lower Mill Road ran east-west, parallel to the south stockade wall, crossing the "river road," and terminated in what appears on the 1844 Peers map and the 1845 Vavasour map to be the heart of Kanaka Village. It appears that by 1846-47, there was a simple gate to mark the entrance to the stockade environs, crossing Lower Mill Road just east of its intersection with the "river road." To the east of the "river road," Lower Mill Road passed the front (south) gate(s) of the stockade, jogged south around some cultivated fields, and continued east, between cultivated fields south of the two lakes, across Fort Plain to the forest, where it followed the edge of the river to the gristmill and the sawmill beyond. Another road extended directly east from the jog south, crossing the plain north of the lakes and meeting the Lower Mill Road at the edge of the plain.

Upper Mill Road ran east-west parallel to the north edge of the stockade. Its western terminus was the southwest edge of the cultivated fields on Lower Plain. From there it ran northeasterly, skirting the north edge of Kanaka Village, the orchard, garden and fields north of the stockade, stretching between cultivated fields northeast of the fort, and then into the rising ground of the bluff to the east of the stockade, heading in a fairly direct route to the center of the west edge of Mill Plain. There it split, running along the edges of Mill Plain, on the north and south sides of the Mill Plain farm, and connecting again on the northeast, heading north, through swamps, towards Camas Plain; a second road on the north edge headed north to Third Plain. Near the "Y" at the edge of Mill Plain, a roadheading south passed through the forest to the Gristmill and Lower Mill Road, and about two miles east of that road, another road led south to the Sawmill. Several shorter roads led off this principal arterial at its westerly end, including a road extending south to the Dairy on Lower Plain and the "river road" between the village and the stockade complex. A steep connecting road from the top of the bluff at the edge of Fort Plain led south to connect with Lower Mill Road. Near the stockade on Fort Plain, Upper Mill Road assumed the appearance of a major thoroughfare (for its time), with a number of structures lining it on the north edge, including several employee residences, a mill, the schoolhouses, and, in 1846, the new Catholic church. Its connection with the "river road" appears to have been a major intersection, with four employee residences lining the "river road" near the crossing.

The third principal road leading from the stockade area on Fort Plain was the Back Plains Road, which began about one-quarter of a mile east of the intersection of Upper Mill Road and the "river road," next to the schoolhouses on the north side of the road. It headed in a northeastly direction, up hills and along swamps to the Back Plains, crossing through the four plains and terminating in a north-south road running along Camas Plain, connecting on the south to the Upper Mill Road. About one-quarter of a mile before reaching First Plain, the road crossed a bridge over a stream leading to Big Lake on the east; this stream was called Bridge River (today, Burntbridge Creek). Bridge River appears to have drained in the swampy lowlands southeast of the Back Plains Road. [422] Before the Back Plains Road left Fort Plain, a short, north-south connecting road between it and Upper Mill Road branched off to the south, leading directly to the north gate road and access to the stockade.