Fort Langley

Well since I'm blogging like crazy I might as well get right up to date and tell you what we did yesterday. It was such a beautiful afternoon yesterday, so we decided, very last minute, to go and check out "Douglas Days" at Fort Langley. November 19, 1958,was the inauguration of the Crown Colony of British Columbia, when Sir Matthew Baillie Begbie, the newly appointed Chief Justice, swore in James Douglas as the first Governor of the Crown Colony of British Columbia. Because this happened at Fort Langley, they were having a parade and free admission to the fort in order to kickoff the 150th year since the birth of British Columbia.
We just started a new unit on BC a couple of weeks ago so I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to mix family fun with homeschool learning. It turns out I was right! :) We had an awesome time and learned all kinds of things about our Province while we were at it.

Here are a few shots from the parade

Then we went inside the fort, where the kids had fun being lookouts from the walls

The blacksmith was demonstrating his trade. The kids really enjoyed that.
Checking out the furs and learning about the fur trade.
Here they had a little booth set up for the kids to practice trading. On one side they had a box of furs and on the other there were blankets, dishes, clothes and tools they could trade for. Awesome hands-on learning!

Evan's favourite thing was panning for gold because he found 2 pieces of gold (painted rocks but still exciting!!)



Posing as one of the witnesses to the ceremony of the inauguration of the colony of British Columbia
There was a display of native artifacts.


And Evan got to use a quill pen and ink to sign his name in the guest book
I am ashamed to admit that in 11 years of living in Abbotsford, this was my first trip to Fort Langley. I will not wait another 11 years to go back!