Fort Okanogan birthday celebration this Saturday

Members of the Okanogan County Historical Society will celebrate the 197th birthday of Fort Okanogan this Saturday, Sept. 7; the party begins at 2 p.m. with a presentation about the fort and its history, followed by cake and ice cream (like any other good birthday party).

Randy Manuel, Penticton, British Columbia, has studied the history of the fort and the fur trade. He's retraced the steps of the trading brigades that left the fort and took the furs downstream to the main post of the Hudson's Bay Company in Vancouver. In his presentation "The Life of the Territory," Manuel will talk about the fort, the fur trade and its part in the early history of the region.

Fort Okanogan was founded in 1811 by American explorers ranging upstream from the newly founded trading post of Astoria. They were fur traders; the fur trade was a booming business in 1811, and the Oregon country was the scene of fierce competition between the New York interests of the Astors and the Hudson's Bay Company based in London. Fort Okanogan was abandoned by the Astor interests and taken over by Hudson's Bay Company; before 1847, what became Washington state was claimed by both the British and Americans and Hudson's Bay Company had outposts throughout the region.

Twice a year the local traders would take the furs collected in the last six months and head downriver to Vancouver. The trip was 1,000 miles; the travelers went by canoe, freight bateaux (a style of boat well known on the Canadian frontier) built at the fort, horseback and on foot. Hudson's Bay Company always conducted operations in a certain style; "the parade often included a bagpiper to add to the hardship," wrote Karen Beaudette of the Okanogan County Historical Society in a press release.

The tall felt hat made of beaver fur was the basis of the fur trade; when it went out of fashion the trade went with it. Fort Okanogan was abandoned by the late 1850s, its story almost forgotten. But not quite. The site of the fort-actually two forts; it was moved not long after it was built-was excavated in the early 1960s, prior to the completion of Wells Dam. (The waters from Wells Dam covered both sites.) Historian Lloyd Keith researched the story of the fort and wrote a book, "Fort Okanogan, A Dull and Dreary Place: the Thompson River District in the Fur Trade, 1811-1860." (The title comes from an early occupant who was stuck a little too long on station.) The book will be published this month by the Okanogan County Historical Society.