Fort Vancouver Historic Structures Report

Construction details

More is known of the physical structure of the 1844-1860 bakery than is the case with many other Fort Vancouver buildings. Unfortunately, even after all the available evidence is examined, there are many details which still must be left to conjecture.

There are two pictures which provide partial views of the bakery. Both are small in scale and were drawn from a considerable distance. Even more discouraging, they seem to present different versions of construction details.

The first of these is a pencil sketch of Fort Vancouver drawn by the Canadian artist, Paul Kane, who visited the post at intervals between December 18, 1846 and July 1, 1847. [14] This view appears to show the main bakery structure to be a gable-roofed building butting up against, but no penetrating the east stockade line. A window is visible in the center of the north wall within the gable, seeming to indicate the presence of an attic or garret. Two chimneys rise from the eave level at the eastern edge of the building. From the east stockade wall a smaller, shed-like structure, an appendage to the main bakery, extends eastward outside the pickets (see plate XIV).

The second is an oil painting of almost exactly the same scene as is presented in the Kane sketch. This splendid picture is undated, and the artist is listed as "unknown" in the records of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, where it is displayed. It probably represents Fort Vancouver as it was after the departure of the Modeste in May, 1847, and before the arrival of the United States troops in May, 1849 (see plate XV). [15]

This painting gives every evidence of having been executed with care. As does the Kane sketch, it depicts the bakery with a gable roof, window in the north wall of the attic, two chimneys rising from the eastern wall at the eaves, and an appended shed to the east. Unlike the Kane drawing, however, it clearly shows the main bakery building extending through the east stockade, with about half the structure inside the palisade and about half outside. The bakery proper, with its chimneys, is shown as being painted white, but the shed annex is brown apparently the color of the natural wood of which it was made. [16]

The second picture is certainly the more accurate. The Vavasour ground plan of late 1845 shows the main "Bake House" as a rectangular structure, which scales out at about 40 feet in north-south length and about 25 feet in east-west width. This building is half within the stockade line and half without. The shed jutting from the east bakery wall is shown by Vavasour as being about 27' x 15' (see plate VII). Thus there is close correspondence between the bakery as shown in the Yale painting and the Bake House plotted by Vavasour.

Additional historical evidence concerning the bakery structure is meager but, on the whole, compatible with the pictures and with the British engineer's ground plan. After the boundary settlement in 1846 the Hudson's Bay Company took an inventory of all its properties south of the 49th parallel. At Fort Vancouver this task was supervised by Thomas Lowe, a clerk who was serving as the chief accountant at the post. Late in 1846 or early in 1847 he had the principal fort structures measured. One version of his inventory describes the "Bake House" as being 40' x 20'; another version gives the dimensions as 40' x 25'. [17]

Dr. B. A. Tuzo, who first saw the bakery in 1853, described it as a two-story structure measuring between 40 and 50 feet in one direction and 20 to 30 feet in the other. It contained two "superior" fire-brick ovens. [18]

These rather meager historical materials fortunately can be supplemented by information derived from the surviving Hudson's Bay Company bakery at Lower Fort Garry and from archeological excavations at Fort Vancouver. Lower Fort Garry, situated near the present Winnipeg, was built between 1831 and 1847, and the bakery there thus falls in the same general time span as that at Fort Vancouver. Although built of stone instead of wood, the Fort Garry bakery had two stone and brick ovens (though with a single chimney) and must have been like its Fort Vancouver counterpart in a number of respects. [19]

The ovens were vaulted inside and out, being placed side-by-side with a common wall between them. Each oven had only one entrance, a small square door placed two-feet above the gravel floor. It is obvious, therefore, that the ovens were heated by fires built inside them and that the coals were raked out or to the side before the breadstuffs were placed inside to bake. The floors of the ovens were level with the bottoms of the doors. A flue led in a slanting direction from the top of each oven to a common chimney at the front end of the ovens. Air spaces at the sides and rear of the joined ovens separated the heated elements from the walls of the bakery.

The construction of these twin ovens is illustrated by the photographs in plates L and LI. Further details are given in plate LII, a drawing based on measurements made during a visit to Fort Garry by Architect A. Lewis Koue and Historian John A. Hussey on September 20, 1967.

There is a second bakery at Fort Garry, located in a building designated as the stable. Although this complex of two separate ovens appears to date from a later period of military occupancy, it has features which may be applicable at Fort Vancouver. In particular, the height of the ovens above the floor, 40 inches, would seem more suitable for large-scale baking operations than the back-breaking 24 inches of the Company ovens. At any rate the dimensions and general design of one of these ovens are shown in the following diagram. See next page, Figure 4.

Figure 4.
Bakery in Stable
Lower Fort Garry
(Measurements by A. L. Koue)

Even more important than the comparative data are the facts about the Fort Vancouver bakery uncovered by archeological excavations during 1948 and the winter of 1970-1971. Footings discovered still in place or only moderately displaced clearly outlined a structure somewhat in excess of 38.5 feet long and 25.5 feet wide placed half inside the east stockade line and half outside. No evidence was found to indicate that the stockade had ever extended through the site of the bakery.

The footings were wooden blocks between 2.4 and 2.9 feet long and 0.9 to 1.1 feet wide and about 0.25 foot thick. Some of the footings were missing, but enough were present to show that they had been placed about 10 feet apart, center to center. For considerable distances along the east bakery wall foundations and westward along the sections of the north and south walls which were outside the stockade, was found "a line of small, erect wooden slabs or puncheons. . . . Measuring about 0.25 foot wide and high, each small slab was cut and set to directly abut the next. Where extant, the slab line formed a tight enclosure." [20]

Probably the purpose of this wooden wall was to create a stout barrier against animals. In 1845 Lieutenant Warre found, much to his discomfort, that skunks "infested" the fort. He reported that several of these odoriferous invaders lived under the floor of the rooms in which he was quartered. [21]

Two widely separated portions of bakery oven foundations were uncovered, one section of the north wall and a larger segment at the southeast oven corner These foundation fragments were from 1.6 to 2 feet wide. They were formed of "rounded cobbles averaging about 0.7 foot in diameter that were set into a single course without sub-footings. Lime mortar, possibly made of Hawaiian coral, was present on top and in between the cobbles but not underneath. No brick was found in situ, but brick fragments were scattered through out the bakery area." [22] The oven foundations were at the same ground level as the wooden footings.

The oven foundations lay immediately to the east of the main wooden bakery building. They represented the base of an oven complex which formed a rectangle measuring about 24.5 feet by 14 feet.

A concentration of window pane glass outside the west bakery wall about five feet from its north end "apparently" marked the location of a window. The highest densities of both glass fragments and nails were found in the western portion of the bakery, leading the archeologists to "infer the presence of several windows, an entrance, and possibly window frames and shutters along the west or interior wall." [23] Other evidence suggested to the archeologists the existence of a doorway in the center of the west bakery wall, "with a pathway leading from the door to two outhouses on the north side of the bakery." [24] No artifacts related to the use of the structure as a bakery were uncovered. Also, no traces were found of the wooden shed which probably covered the ovens.

In summary, the archeological evidence indicates that the bakery measured about 25' x 40'. Attached to the east wall of this main structure were ovens whose foundations formed a rectangle slightly smaller than 15' x 25'. Thus, "in form and dimensions" the bakery as revealed by archeology corresponds almost exactly with the "Bake House" pictured on Vavasour's ground plan of 1845.

Furnishings

Under the heading "Articles in Use," the Fort Vancouver inventory made during the spring of 1844 contains the following list of Company-owned items in the "Bake House":

1 round head Axe
1 water Bucket
1 Candlestick
2 dough Cutters
1 tin Kettle 8 gns.
2 tin Pots
1 tin Scales
2 Biscuit Stamp[s]
1 Steelyards 100 lbs.
3 lead Weights [25]

The inventory for 1845 listed practically the same items, but there were a few interesting variations:

1 Axe
2 Buckets
1 Candlestick
3 pln [plain] Blankets 2-1/2 pts [points]
I dough Cutter
1 Tin Kettle 8 gns
1 Tin pot 3 qts
1 pr Tin Scales
1 Biscuit Stamp
1 lead Weight
1 pr Steelyards [26]

No listing of articles in use in the bakery seems to be available for 1846, but the Fort Vancouver Depot inventory made in the spring of 1847 lists the following articles in the "Bake House":

2 Axes
6 Buckets
1 Candlestick
2 dough Cutters
2 Tin Kettles 8 gns.
3 Tin Pots
1 pr. Tin Scales
4 Biscuit Stamps
1 pr. Steelyards
1 lead Weights
18 Yds. duck sheeting
1 [illegible]
1 hand Saw
3 Tables
2 Tin Pans [27]

The list in the 1848 inventory is somewhat more sophisticated:

Bakehouse

2 large square headed Axes
1 iron weighing Beam & tin Scales
5 plain Blankets 3 points
2 water Buckets
1 tin Candlestick
2 duck sheeting
2 dough Cutters
1 Hammer
2 tin Kettles
2 tin Pans
1 jack Plane
2 tin pint Pots
1 hand Saw
1 iron Shovel
3 biscuit Stamps
1 pr. beam Steelyards, to weigh 110 lbs.
1 pr. beam Steelyards, to weigh 1400 lbs.
1 Canada single Stove 3 ft.
3 Tables
2 yeast Tubs [28]