Friends of Fort Vancouver News

Adapted from interviews and excerpted from "Volcano Rescue" by Roland v. Emetaz in a 1980 edition of Mazama magazine. Foreword: Roland V. Emetaz is a founding board member of the Friends of Fort Vancouver. Known as "Mr. Em" to many, he is a retired Forester with the USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Region. After devoting his long and enjoyabl...

 One of the first photos taken of the eruption of Mount St. Helens, at about 10:00 A.M. on May 18, 1980. Oregonian staff photographer Don Wilson took the shot. Leverett G. Richards, an Air Force Reserve pilot and Oregonian staff reporter, flew the aircraft homebased at historic Pearson Airfield. The reporter and photographer fle...

A featured book in our on-line sales is Days with Chief Joseph by Erskine Wood. In the archives of General John Gibbon, preserved by the Pennsylvania Historical Society in Philadelphia, we found a handwritten letter by young Erskine Wood in 1893. Erskine was 14 years old and wrote this letter to his great-uncle General John Gibbon, then Commander o...

Meet Native artists, learn to make corn husk dolls, and enjoy Native dance and music at the Fort Vancouver Visitor Center on November 2, 2019. This new event, hosted by the Friends of Fort Vancouver and sponsored by Pendleton, will feature regional Native artists and their works, activities for children, books, dance and music."Novem...

Governor Simpson had nothing but praise for those who had built the post and selected its location. "It will in Two Years hence be the finest place in North America," he predicted, "indeed I have rarely seen a Gentleman's Seat in England possessing so many natural advantages and where ornament and use are so agreeably combined." Evidently the Gover...