Fort Langley National Historic Site

Former trading post of the Hudson's Bay Company in British Columbia, Canada

Fort Langley National Historic Site, commonly shortened to Fort Langley, is a former fur trading post of the Hudson's Bay Company in the community of Fort Langley of Langley, British Columbia, Canada. The national historic site sits above the banks of the Bedford Channel across McMillan Island. The national historic site contains a visitor centre and a largely reconstructed trading post that contains ten structures surrounded by wooden palisades. Fort Langley was initially established in 1827 in present day Derby. The fort's operations were later relocated to present day Langley with the new fort completed in 1839. However, the new fort would be rebuilt in the following year, after a fire ravaged the trading post. The fort continued to see use by the Hudson's Bay Company until 1886, when the company ceased to operate the site as a trading post. By the 1920s, only one building remained at the site, the fort's storehouse. The site was later acquired by the Government of Canada in 1923 and designated as a National Historic Site of Canada. The historic site operates as a learning resource for the North American fur trade in the 19th century, with the fort's storehouse having been reopened as a museum in 1931. The fort's other structures and palisades were reconstructed by Parks Canada in the latter half of the 20th century.

Before Fort Langley was established, the area of the Fraser Valley has been home to the Sto:lo people for millennia. The Sto:lo people used the Fraser River as a major source of resources and enabled them to travel and interact with neighbouring Indigenous communities. The area of the Fraser Valley is described as being “one of the most economically productive regions of the Pacific Northwest” pre contact. Within this area, the Sto:lo people developed highly complex social hierarchies, artistic traditions, and architecture. After John Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Company sold its assets in the Oregon Country to the North West Company following the War of 1812, Astor's Fort Astoria was renamed Fort George and became the main depot for Pacific interior trade. Pelts collected in the northern New Caledonia district travelled south along the Fraser River to Fort Alexandria, then overland via a route known as the Brigade Trail to Fort Okanagan then along the Columbia River to Fort George on the coast. The Oregon Country/Columbia District was shared between the British and Americans as a result of the Treaty of 1818, but the treaty was to expire in 1828 and since Fort George stood on the south side of the Columbia River, it would likely be awarded to the United States in any boundary agreement. After the North West Company merged with the Hudson's Bay Company in 1821, the HBC administrator George Simpson suggested the creation of Fort Vancouver on the northern bank of the Columbia, but that it serve as secondary post to a larger trade hub further north near the mouth of the Fraser River. Simpson felt such a location would help secure the coast from ocean based American competition, and believed the Fraser to be more navigable than the Columbia River. He sent Chief Trader James McMillan to explore the region, and McMillan proposed an area near the Salmon River suitable to agriculture, and where fish were plentiful. in 1827 to begin the construction of Fort Langley (named for Thomas Langley, a prominent HBC director) from the mouth of the Fraser River. The construction of this fort represented the first permanent contact of European settlers with Indigenous peoples on the Fraser River. This site was not the same as today's fort, but 4 km to the northwest at what was known by local Indigenous people as snaqʷaməx, and later called Old Fort Langley and finally renamed Derby in 1858 (now only farmland). But when they arrived at the end of July, five of the men were incapacitated with gonorrhea, another with "venereal disease", and all the horses were either dead, crippled, or exhausted. The first bastion was built by mid August in order to defend against another attack by the Sto:lo, a second at the end of the month, and the palisade walls were completed in early September. After the stockade was complete only Indigenous people with furs were allowed past the gate. As they had little contact with Europeans, they were quite self sufficient and not in serious need of European goods. Although the fort was completed in 1839, a fire destroyed much of the fort in 1840 necessitating its reconstruction once again. Non native settlement on the Fraser river compromised Indigenous access to their traditional fishing sites and land, leading to a disruption in the regularity of their traditional practices. Moreover, legal restrictions on the trade of Indigenous catch made it difficult for the Stó:lo to trade fish to make a living. The social and political consequences of this influx of adventurers led the British Parliament to establish a crown colony on the Pacific Mainland. While some might have projected Fort Langley as the capital of the newly created colony, Colonial military commander, Colonel Moody of the Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment, deemed it militarily indefensible and ordered the construction of New Westminster on the high north bank of the Fraser River many miles downstream due to its much more defensible position. On 19 November 1858, the proclamation that established the Colony of British Columbia was read out by James Douglas, who was named the colony's first governor. Douglas made the proclamation on his journey upriver to confront American miners in the wake of the Fraser Canyon War as a pre emptive move to forestall any drives for annexation to the US. The decline of the fort over the next 30 years was attributed to three factors. First, the advent of paddle wheelers on the Fraser meant that river traffic was extended to Fort Hope and Fort Yale. Second, the capital of the colony was established at New Westminster, British Columbia and later moved to Victoria. Finally, competition for goods and services undercut the monopoly the Hudson's Bay Company had formerly enjoyed. In 1886, Fort Langley ceased to be a company post.

In 1923, the Canadian government designated Fort Langley as a National Historic Site and erected a commemorative plaque near the storehouse. At this time, the site consisted only of the one building and of land. From 1931 to 1956, the Native Sons and Daughters of British Columbia operated a museum out of the storehouse. Parks Canada took control of the site in 1955, and a joint Federal Provincial program reconstructed three buildings in time for the centennial of the founding of British Columbia in 1958. In 1978, the site became a national historic park, and has consisted of 8.5 hectares (21 acres) since 1985. In 2019, the students of Langley Fine Arts School worked alongside the community members of the Kwantlen Nation as a part of the project This is Kwantlen, to increase Indigenous representation in Fort Langley. Photographs and biographies of Kwantlen First Nation members were displayed outside of the Fort Langley National Historic Site and throughout Fort Langley during April and May 2019.

The national historic site is situated where the second Fort Langley was built in 1839, above the banks of the Bedford Channel across from McMillan Island. The national historic site initially comprised when it was acquired by the federal government in 1924; The other nine buildings in the fort are reconstructions of the fort's original structures, built during the 20th century. The northeast bastion is a small irregularly shaped square windows and two doors are situated on its second level, providing access to the wall's galleries. The Big House is a reconstruction of the living quarters of James Murray Yale and his wife; and William Henry Newton and his wife, Emmaline (Tod) Newton

The servants' quarters is a one and a half storey rectangular timber structure with a whitewashed exterior, and is covered with a hipped roof; also reconstructed in 1958. The servants' quarters portrays the living conditions of three different HBC employees. The building was used to display barrel making until 1992, when the display was moved to the newly built cooperage. The servants' quarters and the Big House were both erected using the Red River frame construction method. The Big House and servants' quarters designation as a Federal Heritage Building is confined to the building's footprint. The blacksmith shop was first built in 1973, and then rebuilt in 1975. It features a working forge and live demonstrations of blacksmithing. The cooperage was built in 1992, slightly south of the original, and features all the required tools for barrel making and other woodworking. The Depot was reconstructed in 1997 and is mainly used as an exhibition area and administration building. The original building would have been used as a supply depot for shipments in and out of the Fort.