Форт Ванкувер: Центр пушноторговли на северо-западе Америки в XIX веке.

Fort Vancouver was a 19th century fur trading post built in the winter of 1824–1825. The London based Hudson's Bay Company established it to serve as the headquarters of the Company's interior fur trade. In the early 1820s a general reorganization of all NWC properties, now entirely under HBC management, was overseen directly by Sir George Simpson. The newly established Columbia District needed a more suitable headquarters than Fort George at the mouth of the Columbia. Simpson was instrumental in the establishment of Fort Vancouver. Using the HBC position that any settlement of the Oregon boundary dispute would confirm the border placement along the Columbia; Simpson selected a location situated opposite from the mouth of the Willamette River. This expanse was an open and fertile prairie that was outside the flood plain and had easy access to the Columbia.

With high demand from Europe for fur based textiles in the early 19th Century, the HBC was forced to expand its fur trade operations across North America to the Pacific Northwest. Prior to the establishment of Fort Vancouver, the HBC's largest westward fort was Fort William in present day Ontario, which the company gained through its merger with the NWC. From its establishment, Fort Vancouver was the regional headquarters of the HBC's fur trade operations in the Columbia District. The territory it oversaw stretched from the Rocky Mountains in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and from Sitka in the north to San Francisco in the south. Fur trappers would bring pelts collected during the winter to the fort to be traded in exchange for company credit. The credit, issued by the company clerks, could be used to purchase goods in the fort's trade shops. Furs from throughout the Columbia District were brought to Fort Vancouver from smaller HBC outposts either overland, or by water via the Columbia River. Once they were sorted and inventoried by the company's clerks, the furs were hung out to dry in the fur storehouse, a large two story post on sill building located within the walls of the fort. After the furs had been processed, they were mixed, weighed into bundles, and packed with tobacco leaves as an insecticide. The 270 pound bundle of furs would be placed in a large press and wrapped in elk or bear hide to create overseas fur bales. The large 270 pound bales were then placed on boats on the Columbia River for shipment to London via the HBC trade routes. The furs would then be auctioned off to textile manufacturers in London. A large demand came from hatters who produced popular beaver felted hats.

For most of its existence, Fort Vancouver was the largest non indigenous settlement in the Pacific Northwest. The population of the fort and the environs was mostly French Canadians, Métis, and Kanaka Hawaiians; there were also English, Scots, Irish, and a variety of Indigenous peoples including Iroquois and Cree. The common language spoken at the fort was Canadian French, while company records and official journals were kept in English. However, trading and relations with the surrounding community were done in Chinook Jargon, a pidgin of Chinook, Nootka, Chehalis, English, French, Hawaiian, and other elements. A survey of the total personnel at Fort Vancouver in 1846 reveals a culturally and materially diverse populace. Notably, the number of employees from the Hebrides, Orkney, and Shetland Islands was 57 men. This is exactly the same number as the combined number of workers from England and mainland Scotland. The number of men hired from Upper Canada, Lower Canada, and Rupert's Land was in total 91. These men came from English, French Canadian, Métis, Iroquois, Cree, and other cultural backgrounds. Most notable however, was that Kanaka Hawaiians totaled 154 that year, or 43% of the total fort population. Chief Factor Dr. John McLoughlin was its first manager, a position he held for nearly 22 years, from 1824 to 1845. McLoughlin applied the laws of Upper Canada to British subjects, kept peace with the natives and sought to maintain law and order with American settlers as well. McLoughlin was later hailed as the Father of Oregon for allowing Americans to settle south of the Columbia River. Against the company's wishes, he provided substantial aid and assistance to westbound American settlers in the territory. He left the company in 1846 to found Oregon City in the Willamette Valley. James Douglas spent nineteen years in Fort Vancouver; serving as a clerk until 1834 when he was promoted to the rank of Chief Trader. From October 1838 to November 1839, while McLoughlin was on furlough in Europe, Chief Trader Douglas was in charge. In November 1839 Douglas was promoted to the rank of Chief Factor. Douglas took on several temporary assignments elsewhere, to set up HBC's trading post at Yerba Buena (San Francisco) California in 1841, and to establish Fort Victoria in 1843, but from 1839 to 1845 there were normally two Chief Factors based at Fort Vancouver, with McLoughlin in charge and Douglas as his subordinate.

At its inception, Governor George Simpson wanted the fort to be self sufficient as food was costly to ship. Fort staff typically maintained one year's extra supplies in the fort warehouses to avoid the disastrous consequences of shipwrecks and other calamities. Fort Vancouver eventually began to produce a surplus of food, some of which was used to provision other HBC posts in the Columbia Department. The area around the fort was commonly known as "La Jolie Prairie" (the pretty prairie) or "Belle Vue Point" (beautiful vista). In time, Fort Vancouver diversified its economic activities beyond fur trading and begin exporting agricultural foodstuffs from HBC farms, along with salmon, lumber, and other products. It developed markets for these exports in Russian America, the Hawaiian Kingdom, and Mexican California. The HBC opened agencies in Sitka, Honolulu, and Yerba Buena (San Francisco) to facilitate such trade.

Fort Vancouver was supplied in part through the overland York Factory Express. It originated from a route used by the NWC between Fort George to Fort William on Lake Superior. Each spring two brigades were sent, one from Fort Vancouver and the other from York Factory. A typical brigade consisted of about forty to seventy five men. These men carried supplies, furs and correspondence by boat, horseback and in backpacks for various HBC posts and personnel along the route. Furs stored at the York Factory would in turn be sold at London in an annual fur sale. Indians along the way were often paid in trade goods to help them portage around falls and unnavigable rapids.

The HBC, which controlled the fur trade in much of what Americans styled the Oregon Country, had previously discouraged settlement because it interfered with the lucrative fur trade. By 1838, however, American settlers were coming across the Rocky Mountains and their numbers increased each subsequent year. Many left from St. Louis, Missouri, and followed a fairly straight, but difficult, route called the Oregon Trail. For many settlers the fort became the last stop on the Oregon Trail where they could get supplies before starting their homestead. During the Great Migration of 1843 an estimated 700 to 1,000 American settlers arrived via the Oregon Trail.

The signing of the RAC HBC Agreement with the Russian American Company pushed the HBC into creating an agricultural subsidiary, the Pugets Sound Agricultural Company in 1840. Herds of sheep and cattle were purchased in Alta California and raised at Fort Nisqually. Agricultural products were sown and grown in abundance at Fort Cowlitz and exported with foodstuffs produced at Fort Vancouver to Russian America. Recruitment from retired HBC laborers residing in the Willamette Valley as agriculturalists, through the use of priests François Norbert Blanchet and Modeste Demers, utterly failed to convince any farmer to leave for vicinity of the Cowlitz farms. While additional plans called for recruitment in Scotland, these too came to nothing. The only successful source of early colonists for the PSAC would come from the Red River colony. In November 1839, Sir George Simpson instructed Duncan Finlayson to begin promoting the PSAC to colonists. James Sinclair was later appointed by Finlayson to guide the settler families that signed the PSAC agreement to Fort Vancouver. They left Fort Garry (modern Winnipeg) in June 1841 with 121 people that consisted of 23 families. When they arrived at Fort Vancouver, they then numbered 21 families of 116 people. Fourteen of them were relocated to Fort Nisqually, while the remaining seven families were sent to Fort Cowlitz.

Signed in 1846, the Oregon Treaty set the Canada–United States border at the 49th parallel north, putting Fort Vancouver within American territory. Although the treaty ensured that the HBC could continue to operate and had free access to navigate the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Puget Sound, and the Columbia River, company operations were effectively stifled by the treaty and became unprofitable and were soon closed down.

Because of its significance in United States history a plan was put together to preserve the location. Fort Vancouver was declared a U. S. National Monument on June 19, 1948, and redesignated as Fort Vancouver National Historic Site on June 30, 1961. This was taken a step further in 1996 when a area around the fort, including Kanaka Village, the Columbia Barracks and the bank of the river, was established as the Vancouver National Historic Reserve maintained by the National Park Service. It is possible to tour the fort. Notable buildings of the restored Fort Vancouver include a bake house, where hardtack baking techniques are shown, a blacksmith shop, a carpenter shop and its collection of carpentry tools, and the kitchen, where daily meals were prepared.