FORT LANGLEY

Living history in the Fraser Valley

BY CHERIE THIESSEN

SSulky January clouds threaten rain, but we’re not scared off. Squads of small children are advancing toward the fort’s entrance and their exuberant chatter is deafening, but 64 elementary school kids don’t deter us either. There are plenty of buildings to take refuge in if it pours and plenty of warmth in them to take away the midwinter chill. And the children? They add colour and life to an otherwise very quiet fort. I’d forgotten much of my long-ago high school history and so deemed it time to pay my first visit to Fort Langley. It was here that the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) built a trading post in 1827, even before Canada came into being on July 1, 1867.

My partner, David Dossor, and I are about to learn that we have aggressive American traders to thank for this. They had been vying for furs up and down the west coast for some time and making the British government nervous, so establishing the HBC post in what is now Fort Langley helped ease their fears of a possible American takeover of this resource-rich region. Hence the newly-sworn-in Governor, James Douglas, proclaimed the colony of British Columbia on November 19, 1858, and in 1871 BC became a province of Canada.

The children are gathered around a charismatic character in the centre of the grounds who looks like he’s just time travelled from 1827, so armed with our handout we head to the first building we see, hopeful to have the place to ourselves for the first while. A nearby long wooden building, the cooperage, is our first living history experience.

OPENING THE DOOR, we feel as if we’ve time travelled too. Around us are all the trappings of a very necessary 19th century profession—barrel making. We can hear female voices but there is no one here. We’re bemused, but then, coming up stairs that were hidden from view, Hazel Gludo (Fillardeau) and Kirsten Graham appear. Gludo, dressed in what looks like an old Hudson Bay coat, is wearing one of the hats she weaves herself. She’s the cooperage cultural interpreter as well as a Sto:lo elder. Graham, who volunteers in the adjacent log building, the storehouse, is wearing a fashionable settler outfit with long skirt, apron and hair covering. She exits to her post while Gludo gives us a warm welcome and introduction to the cooperage, along with her own history. She tells us that before the HBC arrived, her ancestors used underground storage for the purpose of preserving food. The HBC needed barrels to store and transport the traded goods like salted salmon and cranberries and built them with white pine and Douglas fir. On display are all the stages of this barrel making, along with an ingenious windlass to pull the staves together. Gludo shows us the intricate way in which the willow strips were fastened together to make hoops for the staves and then gives us more history.

“The fort was built close to the river (Fraser) we called Sto:lo. It means ‘people of the river.’ We are all people of the river,” she says. “But it had to be moved because of floods and so then it was moved right where you came in today. My great-great grandfather was Narcisse Fillardeau. He was a Métis and he worked for the HBC here and was the cook for the Big House.”

So, we are definitely in good hands with this knowledgeable cultural interpreter. It really brings history to life when descendants of the original peoples who lived, traded and worked here are available to tell us their stories. This is a deliberate initiative, Jade Szymanski, promotions officer at Fort Langley National Historic Site, later tells me. “The site also works with Kwantlen, Semiahmoo and local Sto:lo Nations to include stories and activities from local history and culture in the fort’s programmes.”

I’m keen to know about her beautiful hat. She takes it off to show me. “I harvested the cedar trees here for the bark for this hat. You can see these culturally modified trees in various places,” she says, leading us through the beautiful weavings hanging on the wall: “This represents rain. We get so much rain here. This is our moon. In between we put Mother Earth. Here’s our raven and our eagle. There’s some lightning, some mountains and all of this means something to us and we thank Mother Earth for everything given to us today.”

WE PROCEED TO the storehouse to see what Graham is up to. The storehouse, built in the 1840s, is the only original remaining building. Again, we have the place to ourselves and are welcomed warmly. Graham holds up a beautiful blanket, a copy of the ones originally made by the First Nations, and explains why they treasured the manufactured European ones.

“At potlatches it was a huge honour to be given a blanket. They were made from a dog they called the ‘woolly dog’, and they would also use hair from mountain goats,” he says. “The women would go out in the springtime with a basket and gather all kinds of mate- rial that could be woven into blankets and then they had to take it home and clean it and spin it and card it and weave it so these blankets could sometimes take four to six years to make. So, when the HBC came in with all those blankets, the company would use them for trade.”

But there is still much more to learn here—about the beaver, for example:

“The First Nations would bring in salmon and cranberries, but the big thing was the pelts. The beaver was the standard of trade. Just as an example, let’s say that each beaver was worth $100.” She shows us markings on the blanket. “You see these little lines? They’re called points, and each point meant one beaver.” My partner, David Dossor, notices there are two and a half lines on the blanket and asks about that. “You’re right,” says