Fort Vancouver Cultural Landscape Report

INTRODUCTION

The analysis and evaluation of cultural landscape resources at Fort Vancouver is based on historical research and the documentation of the existing landscape. The purpose of the evaluation is to identify the significant landscape features, patterns, and relationships that define and comprise the cultural landscape at Fort Vancouver. These patterns and relationships are summarized and organized into seven Character Areas and four Management Zones which help set the framework for the development of Design Recommendations. The analysis and evaluation focuses on all three historic periods associated with the Hudson's Bay Company, especially highlighting the primary period of development, 1829-1844/46. While the site history for this report includes an overview of the historic development of Vancouver Barracks, it is not within the scope of the project to analyze the significance of the Vancouver Barracks landscape. In addition to focusing on the HBC occupation, the analysis and evaluation will narrow the study area to predominately address the historic "heart' of the Fort Vancouver development, the western third of historic Fort Plain. This area today is made up of land both currently within park boundaries and immediately surrounding the park (primarily Vancouver Barracks).

It is important to note that the primary source of the analysis and evaluation is the Cultural Landscape Report: Fort Vancouver N.H.S. Volume II, Landscape History, therefore research citations are not repeated. Additional data not derived from the landscape history are cited in chapter endnotes.

Overall organization of Fort Plain as shown on H.N. Peers' "Sketch of the Environs of Fort Vancouver..." (post 1844). Credit: Hudson's Bay Company Archives Provincial Archives of Manitoba.