Latter-day forts of the Company.
The forts of the Company in Rupert's Land and on the Pacific, with few exceptions, all resembled each other. When permanent, they were surrounded by palisades about one hundred yards square. The pickets were of poles and logs ten or fifteen inches in diameter, sunk into the ground and rising fifteen or twenty feet above it. Split slabs were sometimes used instead of round poles; and at two diagonally opposite corners, raised above the tops of the pickets, two wooden bastions were placed so as to command a view of the country. From two to six guns were mounted in each of these bastions—four six or twelve-pounders, each with its aperture like the port-hole of a ship. The ground floor beneath served as a magazine. Within the pickets were erected houses, according to necessity, store and dwelling being most conspicuous.
Fort Pelly.
The older forts have already been described. When Fort Garry was constructed it became the Company's chief post and headquarters. High stone walls, having round towers pierced for cannon at the corners, enclosed a square wherein were substantial wooden buildings, including the storehouses, dwellings, the Governor's residence and the gaol. Some distance below Fort Garry, on Red River, was Stone Fort, which comprised about four acres, with numerous buildings.
The chief establishment of the Saskatchewan district was Fort Edmonton. It was of sexagonal form, with pickets, battlemented gateways and bastions. Here were the usual buildings, including the carpenter's shop, blacksmith's forge and windmill. At Fort Edmonton were made and repaired, boats, carts, sleighs, harness and other articles and appliances for the annual voyage to York Factory, and for traffic between posts. There was also here a large and successful farm, where wheat, barley and vegetables were raised in abundance.
How different was Fort Franklin, a rough, pine-log hut on the shore of Great Bear Lake, containing a single apartment eighteen by twenty feet! It was roofed with sticks and moss, and the interstices between the logs were filled with mud.
Fort Vancouver.
In 1825 was built Fort Vancouver, the metropolitan establishment of the Company on the Pacific. It stood on the north side of the Columbia River, six miles above the eastern mouth of the Willamette. At first located at the highest point of some sloping land, about a mile from the river, this site was found disadvantageous to transport and communication, and the fort was moved a few years later to within a quarter of a mile of the Columbia. The plan presented the familiar parallelogram, but much larger than usual, of about seven hundred and fifty feet in length and five hundred in breadth. The interior was divided into two courts, with about forty buildings, all of wood, except the powder magazine, which was of stone. In the centre, facing the main entrance, stood the Governor's residence, with the dining-room, smoking-room, and public sitting-room or bachelors' hall, the latter serving also for a museum of Indian relics and other curiosities. Single men, clerks and others, made the bachelors' hall their place of resort, but artisans and servants were not admitted. The residence was the only two-storey house in the fort, and before its door were mounted two old eighteen-pounders. Two swivel guns stood before the quarters of the chief factor. A prominent position was occupied by the Roman Catholic chapel, to which the majority of the fort's inmates resorted, the dining-hall serving for the smaller number of Church of England worshippers. The other buildings were dwellings for officers and men, school and warehouses, retail stores and artisan shops. The interior of the dwellings exhibited, as a rule, an unpainted pine-board panel, with bunks for bedsteads, and a few other simple pieces of furniture.