Cats and Trails and Garden Tales
Musings on cats, travel, gardens and life
HBC and Union Jack
I rarely post twice on the same day but wanted to drop by for the final day of #SimplyRed.
We stopped by Fort Vancouver on our way home from Portland and I found the history fascinating.
The Hudson’s Bay Company established Fort Vancouver under the British flag in 1825 as a fur trading post. Only the ‘gentlemen’ lived inside the fort; the workers who hailed from many different tongues and tribes (native tribes, European trappers, and Hawaiian islanders) lived outside.
Conflict arose when Americans began to arrive in the region and by 1846, the US and Britain settled the international boundary, putting the fort into American hands.
Fort Vancouver today is a national historic site on the Washington side of the Columbia River, and archeologists are still mining the objects and stories in the region.
This handsome bird still calls it home.
The Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) was founded in 1670 by royal charter and controlled the fur trade throughout English and later British North America.
What began with fur trading eventually evolved into a Canadian department store chain, which after 355 years, closed June 1, 2025.
~ Susanne
Cats and Trails and Garden Tales 
Wow, 355 years! Sad that it closed. The bird looks like a raptor with it’s curved beak, beautiful! It’s okay to post more than once a day, I post 2 to 3 times per day.
Thanks, John! I usually don’t have enough material to post even every other day but I guess I was inspired today! 😉 🙂 We shopped at Hudson’s Bay Company in Victoria, so I was surprised to hear it was going out of business after such a long history!
Try taking a random photo of something that interests you and may interest others and base a post on that, as an idea. I wonder what put them out of business? Amazon? 😑
I have no shortage of pictures, just sometimes lack inspiration! 😀
Oh, okay. I love your photos!
Thank you. 😊
stunning bird capture, and fascinating piece of history
Thanks, Becky. 🙂
Now I want to know more about the history of this fort!! Google here I come!
It was so interesting! The movie at the visitor center was most very informative, and the national park website should provide you with a lot of info!
I didn’t know the Hudson Bay Company had folded. That’s kind of sad. A very interesting post and I love the raptor photo.
Thanks, Graham. I was surprised when I read about it closing after hundreds of years in operation.
Us British certainly got around back in the day! 😊
Best wishes, Pete.
You certainly did! 😀
Dear Susanne
We didn’t know that the HBC company closed down just shortly.
Happy weekend
The Fab Four of Cley
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
I was surprised to hear the news recently!
Interesting history – the fort structures look very like those we saw at Fort Ross in California, although that was established by the Russians rather than the British. And that bird is very handsome – great capture!
Thanks, Sarah. The fort is an exact replica as the original burned to the ground after the U.S. army took it over. I guess there’s only so many ways to build a fort! And I was happy the bird posed for me!
Fort Ross is largely a replica too although one of the houses is an original.
The most interesting thing to me was that the Chief Factor John McLoughlin, was ordered by HBC, to turn away the starving people coming west on the Oregon Trail. He refused, fed hundreds and was fired. He moved to Oregon City and became the founding father of Oregon!
Yes indeed! Well put! I learned that from the movie they showed in the Visitors Center. Makes me want to read more about the history of the area. All so interesting!