Vancouver Food Network

As any fourth-grader knows, Vancouver was established as Fort Vancouver by the Hudson's Bay Company in the 1820's. Serving as the central gathering-place for the beaver trade (and other European-influenced commerce) the fort was the northwest's first gated community, under the direction of John McLoughlin from 1824-1846, when he retired to open a general store in Oregon City (a suburb of Vancouver, and end of the Oregon Trail). Fort Vancouver and The Old Apple Tree are at the northeast corner of the Interstate Bridge, just north of Portland, Oregon (a suburb of Oregon City).

The fort was a sophisticated, multi-cultural settlement, with British officers inside and a mixture of Hawaiian cooks, French-Canadian workers and Native Americans on the outside. The fort included a variety of crops and other enterprises, such as a dairy, lumber mill, blacksmith and several gardens, fields and orchards.

Legend has it that a man named Simpson of the Hudson's Bay Company attended a dinner party in London before heading to Vancouver, and apples were served for desert. A young woman gave him a few seeds to plant in the new world, and one of these became The Old Apple Tree, currently at one end of Maya Lin's "Confluence Project" land bridge, connecting Fort Vancouver with Old Apple Tree Park, between SR-14 and the railroad tracks just north of Columbia Way.

Reportedly planted in 1826, the tree was reportedly to have born its first fruit within two years and has been called "the matriarch of Washington's apple industry." The current interchange of SR-14 and I-5 was designed around it, and a plaque at the site says that "The apple culture of the Pacific northwest began at Fort Vancouver in 1826. This is the oldest apple tree in this territory." Grafts from the tree have periodically been sold as a historical fundraiser, and the park is the central feature of Vancouver's Old Apple Tree Park at 112 Columbia Way on the Waterfront Renaissance Trail.

This park is the site of the Old Apple Tree Festival, traditionally held on the first Saturday of October, and focusing on northwest heritage and proper tree care.

Apples grown directly from seed are famously inconsistent, and most nineteenth-century apples were planted for use in alcoholic cider or "apple jack."

For Further Information

• City of Vancouver pages on Old Apple Tree Park and the Old Apple Tree Festival each October.
• "Vancouver's Oldest Apple Tree" at One Thousand Things to Do, May 4, 2008.
• "Old Apple Tree Park" by Wendy Baumgartner, About.com.
• "Vancouver WA Heritage Trees" on Your Daily Tree blog, January 15, 2009.
• "The First Apple Tree" on Waymarking.com, March 2, 2008.
• "When It Comes to Trees in the Pacific Northwest, People Need to Watch Their Words, Especially When Using Superlatives: A Faulty News Release Lets Vancouver's Mayor Indulge in a Teachable Moment" by Allan Brettman. The Oregonian, April 8, 2009, p. C1.
• Michael Pollan's 2002 book The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World has an entire chapter on apples, including an interesting take on John "Johnny Appleseed" Chapman, as discussed on a PBS News Hour interview on June 29, 2001. Botany of Desire is available as both book and CD from the Fort Vancouver Regional Library, call numbers 306.45 POLLAN and CD 306.45 POLLAN , respectively.