HMS Modeste and USS Shark
The HMS Modeste and the USS Shark both spent time in the Columbia River, anchored off the HBC headquarters of Fort Vancouver. In reading articles about these two historic warships,…
Read moreThe Similkameen Post
The HBC’s Similkameen post was not constructed until spring, 1860, yet it is very much a part of BC’s fur trade history, and, interestingly, of my own family’s history as…
Read moreWarre’s York Factory Express Journal
The two British spies, Henry James Warre and Mervin Vavasour, left the Columbia district in the outgoing York Factory Express of March, 1846. We have Henry Warre’s York Factory Express…
Read moreOtter skins
This story has on odd beginning: you would not think that a story about Otter Skins would have anything to do with the construction of a fur trade fort, would…
Read moreThe Missionaries
The HBC men had been settled at Fort Vancouver, on the banks of the Columbia River, for decades before the first of the Missionaries came west to establish permanent settlements…
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