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Danny Cram moves carefree between the forge and the anvil, heating the metal in the fireplace and hammering it into shape as he jokes with the crowd. With panache, the blacksmith presents a giant nail to a young guest at Fort Langley National Historic Site. longer than the width of his hand and looks fierce.
We ooh and aah at the memory before Cram switches to a more confusing decorative hook.
“Those little loops at the end are functional, they’re not there to look pretty,” he emphasizes. “They are pretty, but they are there to serve a purpose. This is an earlier form of hanger. It’s just an S hook with little loops because if you had the point or a rough edge it would go through your clothes. Then you put the loop on it and it doesn’t go through your clothes.
A young woman invited to the Fort Langley National Historic Site of the nail that blacksmith Danny Cram made and gave her/Jennifer Bain
Each time Cram’s inventory of nails cools and hardens, he returns to the fireplace to make them comfortable and malleable again.
“They haven’t done a lot of wonderful things here,” Cram admits. I have no record of them being officially manufactured and in fact nothing wonderful was officially done here for the industry. But we located pieces of the archaeological record, decorated lighter boxes and things like that.
The hook will be for me, but I can’t remove it as fast as a nail. It’s not a big deal, I’m not in a hurry. I traveled to Fort Langley, about an hour from Vancouver in southwestern British Columbia, to learn more about this historic fur industry fort and Parks Canada’s efforts to bring Indigenous perspectives to history.
The trilingual welcome sign at Fort Langley National Historic Site is in English, French and an indigenous language / Jennifer Bain
The fort covers approximately 11 acres of unceded territory of the Q̓wɑ:n̓ƛ̓ən̓ (Kwantlen), Máthxwi (Matsqui), se’mya’me (Semiahmoo) and Q̓ic̓əy̓ (Katzie) First Nations.
There are 12 structures within the stockade walls, adding the original warehouse, 3 reconstructed buildings (the Great House, the Servants’ Quarters and the Northeast Bastion) and the Tradish’s Ancestor Café, which runs past Sarah Mierau of the Sayisi First Nation Dene.
The visitor center, maintenance complex, artifact facility, picnic shelter and orchard are located outside the walls. Waterfront assets (crossing an escarpment, road and railway) are not actively used.
A view of the original and reconstructed buildings within the walls of Fort Langley/Jennifer Bain
“The Fort Langley site is part of the fur industry site in Canada,” Parks Canada says in a draft control plan for the site. “The decisions made here tell a broader story of the status quo of the British presence on the Pacific coast and are a key step in building Canada as a nation. »
Fort Langley is located on the south bank of the Fraser River, near McMillan Island, which is still home to the Kwantlen community. The longhouses and canoes of the other Kwantlen peoples (the main trading partner and intermediary in the industry with other indigenous communities) once covered the island’s shores.
As Parks Canada explains, the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) founded Fort Langley in 1827 to protect British-controlled industry on the west coast of North America and maintain a competitive interest in the industry. In 1839, the post was moved upstream of the river to the upper deck to be closer to agricultural operations.
From there, the HBC began exporting salmon to places like the Sandwich Islands of Hawaii, where many Native Hawaiians were recruited to work at HBC forts and trading posts.
Heritage interpreter Dave Helberg shows Fort Langley, a reconstructed “industrial window” where indigenous people once brought fur and fish into the industry for European products such as blankets and tools/Jennifer Bain
After the Columbia River abandoned as the direction of the fur industry in 1848, Fort Langley replaced Fort Vancouver as HBC’s primary transshipment depot for transporting goods to and from inland trading posts west of the Rocky Mountains.
Indigenous peoples, their territories and their workforce were the foundation of the fur industry, according to Parks Canada. The posts were built near indigenous settlements, industrial routes, and meeting places, and have become vital places for economic, social, and cultural exchange. .
It was Chief Whattlekainum of the Kwantlen First Nation who suggested HBC for the salmon and blueberry industry. So the salted salmon went to Hawaii and the blueberries were shipped to California. By 1848, Fort Langley was making more money from salmon than from skins. To delve deeper into the era of canned salmon, I visited the Gulf of Georgia Cannery National Historic Site near Richmond. )
By the 1850s, Fort Langley was a center for shipbuilding, blacksmithing, agriculture, blueberry packaging, and fish salting. In 1858, spurred on by the influx of American gold prospectors to the area, the British government chose Fort Langley as the place to reclaim the status quo of the new British colony of British Columbia. The proclamation is a vital milestone in Canada’s journey toward the nation.
Fort Langley has five oTENTiks, a hybrid tent and cabin that Parks Canada rents out to visitors for overnight stays/Jennifer Bain
Now under the care of Parks Canada, the fort is open year-round. More than 100,000 people visited in the years before the pandemic. That number fell, but recovered to around 74,000 last year.
You can stay overnight in five oTENTiks (a covered accommodation), pan for gold, and watch cooperage, baking, and musket demonstrations. But naturally, everyone is attracted to blacksmithing.
“I love the kids here,” Cram says. They are so fascinated, and so are their parents, that they simply don’t need to show it. It’s funny because kids ask questions without any challenge and parents need it so they whisper to their kids to ask the question.
At the Ancestor Café in Fort Langley, blacksmith Danny Cram chats over bannock (an indigenous fried bread) and jam/Jennifer Bain
At Café Ancestor, around a bannock (an indigenous fried bread) topped with strawberry jam, sweet grass, blackberries and sage, the 61-year-old blacksmith explains how he came to this profession.
Cram, as a statistical studies analyst, helped his spouse, an early-formative educator, run a preschool at home and later helped expand school systems for students. She has six children, three of whom were born in Ethiopia and China.
About ten years ago, she asked a farrier to make her son-in-law a knife for Christmas and ended up taking lessons from her. “Four classes and I was hooked,” she recalls.
Cram bought an anvil and took more categories from the Vancouver Island Blacksmiths Association, extremely happy with his classmates who were “characters, like those in a Dickens novel, and from all walks of life. “
The Fort Langley Blacksmith Shop Chimney/Jennifer Bain
While partially retiring in 2017, a member of the arrangement told him about an incredibly rare blacksmithing task at Fort Langley.
“He was nowhere near the most productive blacksmith in the province because he had only been working there for 3 years, but I bet they were looking for a talkative blacksmith,” he predicted. “That’s my thing, and blacksmiths aren’t that talkative. “Draw characters. Because it’s an eye-hand skill, and there’s not a lot of literature on how to do it, and there’s no formal training, you need to have a hobby for it, and it’s original.
Cram passed the job interview, which focused on childcare and crowd management, before being given a few hours to do three things in the fort’s blacksmith shop while giving a public lecture.
“It was summer and when they took you to the forge and they opened you up, a crowd showed up. Everyone comes to the forge. Being a blacksmith in a certain place, I say, is like being Mickey Mouse at Disneyland. People need to be there, not you have to convince them.
There’s a crowd gathered outside the Fort Langley blacksmith shop where Danny Cram works 4 days a week/Jennifer Bain
There should have been a hundred visitors that day. “All three elements were horrible, because I was laughing so hard talking to people,” Cram confesses. “Maybe I’m not a wonderful blacksmith. However, I can argue. And the forge is a wonderful place to tell stories. He was given the task and likes how Parks Canada’s message about the fort – “a monument to unilateral colonialism” – is evolving. The HBC colonial flag no longer flies at the fort. Paintings of Kwantlen elders at the fort. Métis craftsman Pat Calihou built a classic boat, similar to the one his ancestors once used to transport goods for the fur trade.
Returning to the forge after lunch, a crowd gathers as Cram demonstrates how to light a fireplace and launches into stories about his side-blow and side-blow forge.
Once you heat the steel, it becomes malleable. This piece becomes a highlight/Jennifer Bain
Before the Industrial Revolution, he explains, everything made of steel was made through a blacksmith. Blacksmiths only made cutlery and some types of locks, but they were generalists. He considers himself a traditional blacksmith because “no blacksmith has ever rejected a force tool. ” However, he is only allowed to paint with his hands in the fort.
The HBC didn’t need to hire beloved master blacksmiths who would simply leave and open their own shop, but simply “rural blacksmiths” who would simply fix things and make functional equipment to generate advertising products.
“That’s why I tell other people that this position is like Fort Walmart, and that the blacksmith is like the janitor,” Cram says. “That’s the skill point you need. “
A wall of homemade equipment in the blacksmith shop at Fort Langley National Historic Site/Jennifer Bain
If a fort did not have a blacksmith and the carpenter needed a chisel, he would have to be sent to England to buy one, and that is six months sailing there and six months returning. So it’s not that the blacksmith is exceptional, but it’s much more than waiting a whole year to do it.
The blacksmith’s workshop is now full of equipment and hammers. There are studs, cutlery and chains, the letters HB and even a rose.
The historic blacksmith department stores were filled with damaged equipment that could be repaired or turned into anything else. “Blacksmiths have been into recycling and repurposing,” says Cram, who loves to reuse metal coil springs for trucks from scrapyard recyclers.
A decorative hook made by Fort Langley blacksmith Danny Cram for Jennifer Bain.
My crochet is almost finished.
“You can see how long it takes to make anything decorative, which is why the blacksmiths in Hudson Bay were told not to make decorative items, because it’s just a hook and it would probably take me 20 seconds to make one, but making one “Decorating takes a lot longer,” Cram told the crowd. “It’s just a general trapper shop, so there’s not a huge demand for fancy hooks. There’s a demand to fix the equipment and make things work.
The crowd subsided as Cram handed me my hook, a sensitive, good look that reminded me of an elegant seahorse.
“You’ve earned a gift,” says the other user in the heat. “I need a gift too. “
Blacksmith Danny Cram works with a hook on an anvil at Fort Langley/Jennifer Bain Forge
Cram laughs and makes another one, on the condition that he remains silent.
“It’s interesting, in an unexpected way,” reflects the woman, who understands it.
“It is. A lot of other people are caught off guard,” Cram admits. “A lot of other people say ‘oh, I would love to be able to do that’ or ‘it’s lost art. ‘But nothing is lost. ” In that, it’s a practical skill, and you learn by practicing over and over again. Before I made hooks, I made nails because that’s how you learn to be a blacksmith. We want to earn between 800 and 1,000 per day. When you can do that, you do anything else.
Blacksmiths of the fur industry era were generalists guilty of making and repairing equipment and other items/Jennifer Bain
When other people (usually young) ask Cram what he likes to do the most, he replies that he has ADHD and that “what he likes most is to do the following. “variety of things.
In the days of the fur trade, hooks had uses and were made by the thousands. They helped hang clothes, tools, cooking equipment, and food such as beef and geese.
It takes about 17 minutes and despite everything, Cram finishes his second hook, intentionally asymmetrical and with a personality absolutely different from mine.
A guest at Fort Langley holds an asymmetrical hook made for her by blacksmith Danny Cram/Jennifer Bain.
We solemnly promise to value such unforeseen gifts and will be informed that the fort has winter categories for making things like pierced lanterns, pierced stars, and even ornamental roses.
Cram is pleased to have awakened in us and everyone else a new appreciation for blacksmithing today.
As we say goodbye, he reminds me: “It is very human to make and love to make tools. ” »
They may not have been offered at Fort Langley in the fur industry era, but ornamental roses are now a hit with visitors to the National Historic Site/Jennifer Bain.
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