“I DO NOT GO ALONE”: Natural History Forays from Fort Vancouver

Date/Time
May/20/2016
7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Location
Tex Rankin Theater at the Pearson Air Museum, Fort Vancouver

The original Fort Vancouver was still under construction when Scottish naturalist David Douglas arrived in the spring of 1825, sent by the London Horticultural Society to collect new species of Northwest flora and fauna. A wide range of people that Douglas encountered around the nascent post assisted and enriched his mission in many ways. Despite wrenching changes in the social dynamic, those same people continued to support naturalists’ expeditions through the railroad and boundary surveys of the 1850s. Such cooperative local knowledge was one reason that Dr. Meredith Gairdner, a Douglas successor in the field, could write that

The true method of examining this country is to follow the plan of Douglas, whether with the view of investigating the geognostic, botanical, or zoological riches of the country.

This slide presentation will examine some of the significant collections made around Fort Vancouver through period journals and artwork, then consider what these early naturalists have to tell us about the Columbia District’s human and natural landscape over the past two centuries.

For more information, go to https://www.nps.gov/fova/planyourvisit/calendar.htm