Fort Vancouver Cultural Landscape Report

Site
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Fort Plain

Fort Plain was the functional and approximate geographic center of the Fort Vancouver farm. As noted earlier, all principal roads led to and from the 1828-29 stockade, making it the hub of the other farms located to the northwest, west and east of it. Until the establishment of Mill Plain farm in 1841-2, much of the Company's crops were grown on Fort Plain, and some portion of the livestock was probably always allowed to graze on it. The perimeter of the plain was bounded on all sides by dense forest. On the west, underbrush and trees separated it from Lower Plain; on the east the forest served as a boundary between it and the large natural opening which was to become Mill Plain farm. On the north, the forest ringed, and probably intruded into the upper plateau of the plain.

By 1844-46, there were a number of distinct activity centers on the plain, as indicated in the 1846 Covington farm map, by the 1844 Peers map, and by the Vavasour map of 1845. The stockade included warehouses, sales shops, residential structures, and industrial buildings; outside, to its immediate east and north, were additional structures associated with manufacturing and agriculture. Surrounding the stockade were cultivated fields planted in different crops, including a garden on its north, and an orchard to the northwest. The Company's cemetery, cultivated fields, a complex of barns--burned in 1844--and several structures associated with the stockade, including a new Catholic church and schoolhouses were situated north of Upper Mill Road, on rising ground leading to and on the upper plateau. A village consisting of somewhere between thirty and sixty dwellings--later referred to as Kanaka Village--was located west of the stockade and the "river road." Manufacturing and processing activities, some dwellings, and a hospital were located southwest of the stockade near the Company's wharf along the Columbia River. Southeast of the fort were two different cultivated fields. The remainder of the plain was apparently used to pasture livestock. Scattered across it were agricultural buildings, including barns, a stable, and a piggery.

The post was moved approximately one mile west of the original stockade, to the west side of what became known as Fort Plain, about four hundred yards from the Columbia River, in the winter of 1828-29. The site selected was apparently carefully considered, after observing the spring floods in the late '20s. There is one recorded incident of flooding during this period when the waters may have reached the stockade. Jedediah Smith said construction on the new stockade began in the early spring of 1829; by the time he left in early March, enough was built for him to report the stockade was about 300 feet square. [428] However, construction was still underway in the fall of 1829; Archibald McDonald "ventured" to the post at that time and referred to Fort Vancouver as "...being rather an unfinished Garrison." [429]

It appears that cultivation of the plain began at that time--possibly a year or two earlier, and that most of the livestock grazing on the plain, noted by John Scouler in 1825, were gradually moved to other areas of the farm. At present it is unknown when the houses or cabins for Company servants first appeared in the Kanaka Village area, but some were apparently located in the general vicinity by 1832, as reported by John Ball. In addition, there is some evidence that a small cluster of structures were located near the southeast corner of the stockade, at least as early as 1841. The beginning of the development of the river front area south of the village probably occurred at least as early as the move of the fort. Two small wooden boats were built at Fort Vancouver in 1827-28, and it has been hypothesized that two structures--boat sheds--still standing in 1846-47, just east of the pond, may have been erected in or around that time. [430]