Landscape Characteristics
Natural Systems and Vegetation
The abundant availability of natural resources provided an optimal site for successful fur-trading and agricultural enterprise. The site's strategic location on the Columbia River and its surrounding natural resources were prime factors that attracted the Hudson's Bay Company. Key natural resources included the Columbia River and major streams for transportation; a mild, maritime climate and good soils for farming; large grasslands with livestock potential; plenty of timber for building; and open space in the midst of impenetrable forests to accommodate fort development.
Several people visited and documented the vegetation of Fort Vancouver in its early years. Early explorers observed the site's unique prairie-forest composition before and after the fort's construction. Pioneer settlers approvingly appraised prairies as useful places for livestock grazing and agriculture operations, while forests provided the necessary building materials.
George Simpson described the natural vegetation in the region west of the Cascade Range after his winter 1824-25 trip up the Columbia River to Jolie Prairie: "The banks of the Columbia on both sides from Capes Disappointment and Adams to the Cascade portage a distance of from 150 to 180 Miles are covered with a great variety of fine large timber, consisting of Pine of different kinds, of Cedar, Hemlock, Oak, Ask, Alder Maple and Poplar with many other kinds unknown to me."
After his 1825 visit, John Scouler wrote:
It is situated in the middle of a beautiful prairie, containing about 300 acres of excellent land, on which potatoes and other vegetables are cultivated; while a large plain between the fort and river affords abundance of pasture to 120 horses, besides other cattle...The forests around the fort consists chiefly of Pinue balsamea & P. canandensis (trees since identified as Psuedotsuga douglasii and Picea sitchensis). Within a short distance of the fort I found several interesting plants, as Phalagium escluentum, Berberis nervosa, B. Aquifolium, Calypso borealis & Corallorhiza innata. The root of the Phalangium esculentem (bulb since identified as Camassia quamash or camas) is much used by the natives as a substitute for bread. They grow abundantly in the moist prairies, the flower is usually blue, but sometimes white flowers are found.
Fellow traveler Scottish botanist David Douglas also visited Fort Vancouver in April 1825 and remarked that:
Extensive natural meadows and plains of deep fertile alluvial deposit are covered with a rich sward of grass and a profusion of flowering plants...my labour in the neighborhood of this place was well rewarded by Ribes sanguineum (currant), Berberis aquifolium (tall Oregon grape), Acer macrophyllum (bigleaf maple), Scilla esculenta (Camassia quamash, camas), Pyrola aphylla (leafless pyrola), Caprifolium cilosium (Lonicera cilosium, honeysuckle), and a multitude of other plants.
Spatial Organization
The fort palisade, the employee village, agricultural fields, roads, mills, and farm clusters were organized around the regional natural systems, vegetation, and topography. The Columbia River and its floodplain geomorphology essentially influenced the development of the fort site in this time period and subsequent periods. The open prairie area in the midst of dense coniferous landscape on the shores of the Columbia River provided a strategic location for the HBC post. The river benches helped define the location of developed areas such as the fort, while floodplain soils on the prairies previously burned by Lower Columbia tribes provided optimal pastures, fields, and agriculture lands. The fort palisade, internally focused and delineated by the stockade fence, occupied a central position on the lower plain just above the river. It was the hub from which all activity radiated. Roads spiked away from the palisade to the river, employee village, agricultural fields, and upper Plains. Developments such as the fort, farm buildings, the village, and the mission, were organized in cluster arrangements related to their immediate functions.
Land Use
Fort Vancouver was a full-scale manufacturing, agricultural, and trading center of the Pacific Northwest by 1846, and Simpson's vision of the HBC post as a regional and global trading center was realized. The Fort Plain lands functioned according to uses driven by this prominent industry; the HBC environs were utilized for extensive agriculture, for industries related to the export trade business, and to meet the subsistence needs of the many residents. Residential areas, farm clusters, industrial areas, fields, pastures, and mills all developed to support this first large-scale Pacific Northwest trade post. As development proceeded, forests and prairies were cleared to make way for fields and farms.
The Columbia River was the primary transportation corridor that supported Fort Vancouver's trading and agricultural industries. Travel still occurred mainly by water during this period, and people and goods arrived and departed Fort Vancouver via boat. The waterfront was thus an active place, and an important nexus between the fort site and the river.
Circulation
Development of roads, paths, and water routes was largely driven by the fort's function as a fur-trading and agricultural post. Principal access to and from the site during this period was from the Columbia River. The Columbia River was the focal point of activity, and the primary transportation route for far-ranging trade and supply ships, as well as local travel. Hudson's Bay Company ships, London-based supply ships, and civilian and military trading ships traveled upriver from the Pacific Ocean. Verious river craft transported passengers and goods down river from The Dalles, while barges and boats brought passengers and goods from the Willamette River to the Columbia to the Company's wharf.
An 1825 map shows that the first road was constructed on a north-south axis from the Columbia River to the first fort site. This road allowed goods unloaded from ships at the waterfront to be transported up the bluff to the stockade's storehouses. Carting goods the nearly one-mile distance with wagons was an arduous process. The exact anchorage and staging area for the first fort is unknown, although a wharf was constructed southeast of the 1828-29 fort site within this time period.
Early maps illustrate conflicting information with respect to the road system development. An 1846 map by Richard Covington is fairly consistent with an 1844 map by Henry Peers, which shows the east-west Upper Mill Plain Road and the Lower Mill Plain Road, and a southeasterly road connecting the two mill plain roads. But these two maps differ from the 1845–46 Vavasour map in depicting the location of the southeasterly road in relation to the lower lakes. None of the 1840s maps indicate the connection between the Lower Mill Plain Road and the river.