Gardener FY25

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Fort Vancouver’s thriving, half-acre interpretive garden, featuring heirloom fruits, vegetables, herbs, flowers, and historically significant cultivars, is meant to represent the much larger Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) garden of 1845. The plantings generally include approximately 60 types of fruits and vegetables, 20 types of culinary and/or medicinal herbs, and 50 varieties of flowers (including two dozen heirloom roses), all documented in the archives of the HBC or in English gardens of the time. Dr. McLoughlin, the chief factor of the fort during the park’s interpretive period, used techniques such as crop rotation, cover crops, and natural soil amendments, which are still practiced in the garden today.

Garden volunteers will help to plant and maintain the interpretive garden, as well as the beds in front of the Chief Factors House inside of the reconstructed fort. Work will sometimes occur at other locations within the park, such as the replica HBC apple orchard. Volunteers will also interact with visitors and answer questions about the park and gardens, and they are expected to learn about the history of the garden and the significance of the HBC’s contributions to the agricultural development of the Pacific Northwest.

This position provides an excellent opportunity through which volunteers can immerse themselves in the history of the HBC fort while providing a very beautiful, peaceful, and educational garden for visitors. At the same time, volunteers will learn about historical organic gardening techniques and the history of a number of foods that many Americans still eat every day. In addition, the produce grown in the interpretive garden will be used to enhance programming in the park’s historic Kitchen and for youth volunteer programs. Volunteers’ hard work and interaction with visitors will help to support the broader missions of the National Park Service and Fort Vancouver National Historic Site.

Start Date - 2024-09-25

End Date - 2025-09-25