Hudsons Bay Company

Ottawa, Canada: a capital keeping track of the past

Normally I'd be the last person to leap on a bike and go hurtling off into the wilderness. Generally I favour a museum or a gallery over anything remotely sporty. But Ottawa made me feel different. Maybe it was the sense of claustrophobia and unreality generated by an artificially created capital city. Maybe it was the tempting proximity of the Canadian wilderness. Or the fact that the city is a cyclist's dream that can be traversed in several directions with minimal recourse to regular roads.

It all started as I stood on the Alexandra Bridge over the wide, slow-moving Ottawa River, at the point where Canada meets itself. On one bank is English-speaking Ontario, with the neo-Gothic towers of Parliament Hill, the seat of Canada's government, standing high on a forested bluff, slightly dour, but undeniably impressive. On the other bank, as though in sardonic riposte, are the belching chimneys and unlovely brutalist blocks of Gatineau in French-speaking Quebec and, beyond them, pine-covered hills rolling into the distance. Here we have Canada in microcosm: a country with diversity built into its system, which struggles to present a coherent image to the rest of the world; a balance between the affable, safe, urban Canada of muffins and malls, where the vast majority live, and the immensities of mountain, prairie and tundra, where almost nobody lives.

If the royal couple want a deeper insight into the Canadian soul than is possible in a whirlwind seven days of official functions, they should visit an Ottawa institution that stands directly across the river from Parliament Hill, a place that might be described as the conscience of Canada, which represents, even celebrates the Indian reservations, isolated logging towns and icebound Inuit communities: the Canadian Museum of Civilization.

Housed in a building designed by the Native Canadian architect Douglas Cardinal, the museum seems to challenge the four-square bombast of Parliament Hill, its flowing walls following the contours of the riverbank in shapes that feel at once organic and futuristic. In the magnificent glass-fronted great hall, the majestic totem poles of the north-west coast peoples, with their eagles, bears and woodland spirits, look across the river, as though in reproach, towards the powers that appropriated their land and all but destroyed their culture. Yet the two buildings aren't quite parallel, and sightlines disappointingly fail to connect.

Hawaiians & the Hudson's Bay Company « Pacific Island National Parks

In the 1850s, American visitors to this area of Fort Vancouver refered to the Village as “Kanaka Town.” At the time, Hawaiians were known as Kanakas, meaning “human being,” and this name for the community is evidence of their significant presence at Fort Vancouver. This sketch, perhaps by George Gibbs, includes the north end of the Village, the fort, and the military post.

Throughout this week, we will be exploring the fascinating history of Hawaiians on the U.S. Mainland. Many find it surprising how many Hawaiians left their islands to explore the world following Captain Cook’s expedition to Hawaii in the late 1780′s. Today’s post comes from the publication “Hawaiians at Fort Vancouver”

The Hudson’s Bay Company’s (HBC) Fort Vancouver had a unique relationship with the Hawaiian or “Sandwich Islands,” the 19th century trade hub of the Pacific. Sailing vessels worldwide stopped regularly at “Owyhee” for recreation, supplies and ship repair, simultaneously developing a “lively exchange of commodities” amongst nations. The HBC exchange might include trading furs for Boston’s knives and copper pans, swapped for Hawaiian sandalwood or whale oil, bartered for Cantonese silk and tea for Northwest use. Hawaiian imports included items such as hogs, sugar cane, salt, molasses, coffee, wicker baskets, and sweet potatoes. By the 1830s, Fort Vancouver exported produce, wheat, flour, lumber, and salmon. Northwest timber built Hawaii’s European style homes, while Hawaiian coral supplied lime for fertilizer and whitewash, and mortar for the Fort’s chimneys. Meanwhile, the now traditional lomi lomi salmon served at present-day luaus remains a forgotten legacy of the fur trade era.