USA - Canada - Mexico 2016 - Day 50

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Tuesday, 25 October 2016 - Fort Langley, British Columbia

Quiet day today, walking around Fort Langley and looking through the recreation of Fort Langley, the trading fort established to create the colony and become the central point of trading in the region. That and getting a hair cut and beard trim so I look some what respectable again.

This really is a beautiful town. The businesses in the town area are spread out across a number of streets but all carry the looks and character of the town as it was constructed many years ago. The shops in one particular street have very historic looking facades and have apparently been used in a number of movie sets. This area has been dressed up recently in preparation for a new movie. When you see that particular photo, you will see a "Village Hardware" store. It is actually an empty store that has had the facade painted to fit the movie role while the rest of the shops are real. The barber told me he had been approached to use his business as part of the movie. Even new houses being built seem to all be designed and built with consideration to the style of the existing buildings retaining the character of the town.

After lunch at one of the many cafes, we walked up to the recreated Fort for a look. Most of the buildings and the fort walls are constructed of cedar, one of the primary trees in the area and used for at least the last 300 years of settlement for building construction, particularly for its ability to resist weathering. What it really means is that walking into any of those building fills your senses with the wonderful scent of the cedar.

Interesting place to walk through and see the way things were but what I liked most of all with the fort construction and displays, and of the local museum we also visited, is the involvement and emphasis on education of the school children in teaching about the heritage of the area. The teaching also involves showing the children how artifacts are found, uncovered and displayed for the benefit of all. This has resulted in a culture that brings anything found to the attention of the right people rather that the artifact being lost to the community and nation.

Tomorrow we repack all the gear for the next part of the trip, helmets, jackets, boots, wet weather gear, gloves, cold weather gear etcetera that won't be needed again then it's trip to the Vancouver Zoo to give Therese a chance to see a live Black Bear. The store did have the skin of one as part of the trading store display, but some how that wasn't quite the same.