Journals--Day 10 Girls

Day 10, June 30, 2006

Today was heavy day.  We went to the Fort Vancouver. All of us except Annie.  She had to work on the journals/reports/and everything about trip on the website.  The Fort Vancouver was very close to WSD.  It was around 5 minutes to get there.  We didn’t stay there that long.  Anyway, we started packing, cleaning, and it was last day of  “ON THE ROAD” expedition  We will be leaving here at around 6:00pm and our airplane will be at 9pm.  The airplane will flying from 9pm to 3am.  Then it will be postpone to 6am because in Connecticut’s time and Washington’s time are different from 3 hours.

We learned something new but not really a lot.  Let me tell you what we did learn about today in the Fort Vancouver.  It was all about pioneers and how did they live within and through their life.  But it seems they had a lot of working and they don’t have any time to be on free time.  The kids and the young kids had to work too!!  But right now in 2006 the kids don’t have to be working.  The kids at the age by over 16 can work.

They used animal hides for everything and they never wasted it.  The Fort Vancouver was headquarters for the Hudson Bay Company.  The man who ran Hudson Bay Company and his family lived in a very fancy house in 1825.  But the other people who were regular worker for the Hudson’s bay don’t live in any of good houses and they were very poor.  The women were not allowed to be sitting with the men (their husbands) during dinner time. The men were not really interested in women during dinner time.  The women had to be sitting with their children in another room.  The women had to cook Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner but the men didn’t and they had to working on other stuff instead of cooking.

There were some different gardens around the fort area. The flowers in the garden smelled great.  I like the flower called lavender.  They smelled good smelled like spicy peppers.  It is used for lotions.

We also saw the bathrooms (outhouse) with two toilets in one.  I asked Nancy, why did it have two instead of one toilet?  She said she don’t know why.  But she said it could be when the two people can sit on the two toilets on the same time and they can talking together.  It was funny to hear when she saying that.

I think that is all I have to be saying about the fort.  But it was not really fun day and I think it was because we are so exhausted!  Nancy said I looked like I am dying because she asked me something a question I wasn’t answer and I was over my head. Haha! 
Anyway, we went to back to WSD then DOING OUR JOURNALS THEN PACKING!  We are leaving here at around 6pm.

All I want to saying is, THANK YOU TEACHERS (Nancy Zurek, Annie Nutt, and Barbara French) for inviting us to Washington.  I am sure we had too much fun.  I also learned a lot and my brain is so full of information.  Now, I have to rest my head.  But thank you teachers for all the enjoyable things we did and everything.  I really appreciated it.  I am so happy you guys invited me.  THANK YOU AGAIN!  I also want to say something nice to the Washington School for the Deaf.  Thank you for letting us stay at the stunning cottage all the whole nine days.  I am telling you I AM LOVING YOUR COTTAGE.  I hope I can see you guys again.  It was pleasure to meet you.

OTR Tenth Day

Today is the last day of our trip! Wah… I don’t want to go back home and leave the beautiful places I ever saw! I am excited to see my parents and I can’t wait to hug them. I miss them so much! So now, it’s time for us to pack, clean the cottage, and everything then get ready to go to the Portland Airport.

Also, today we went to Fort Vancouver for a short time; it is a National Park. Nancy had thought it was a state park but it wasn’t. Oops, but the good thing is that we had touched the 4 national parks so far! 
This place is very near to WSD like 5 minutes. It is a small place with the several small wooden buildings. A long time ago, around 900 pioneers lived there and also this place is for the people to go there to trade anything what they needed by using the beavers’ fur at the Hudson Bay Trading Company. Yes, around 1825, people don’t use the money at all, that time; beavers’ furs are very worthy to them to be able to trade for something else. Beavers’ furs are like “money.” You can trade a beavers’ furs to change it to 3 or 4 blankets.  A beavers’ furs can change to 3 cans of tobacco or anything else. Today, we don’t do that, we use the money to buy or pay for anything.

It is a nice place to see, I saw there’s many of the dishes, bowls, spoon, forks, knives, tables, 2 kitchen rooms and a laundry room that was what it looked like a long time ago. Back then, people tend to kill the animals for the fur to make clothes and anything then ship it to England from the Columbia River. There’s a fancy house that where the Chief (boss of Hudson Bay Trading Company) and his wife lived. They had a fancy bedroom, bathroom, living room and the kitchen. But for the “regular” people it was not the same as the Chief. They had to live in the normal small house and the tiny kitchen that they had to cook in. To me, I felt it was not fair for them but oh well… that’s what they had to do.

The most part I was interested in was about that the people don’t use money; they just had to take the beavers’ furs and trade to anything what they want or needed. I would prefer to do that instead of money because it is an easier way to do things. That’s what I thought.

It’s time to go  back to the cottage and be ready for everything until around 6pm and get ready to say good-bye to WSD, the WSD cottage and the Washington state too. (frown face)

All I have to say is, all those days that I have been here, I really had learned a lot of things, saw a lot of things that we wanted to see. We actually did that and I am very proud of myself that I came here. Right now, I didn’t want to leave and say good bye to Washington State, I wants to stay here and of course there’s more things to see. We are not finish yet…

Journal day 10: June 30, 2006

I woke up feeling ready to go to Fort Vancouver, but when we got there I was tired. When we got there, the first place we went to was the trading store. It had tons of different things. The ranger there said that if you have beaver skin that is the best kind of fur you can get. You can get anything with the beaver skin.

They had so many different furs there; they have bobcat, bear, elk, mink, otter, and other furs. The beaver is the most valuable fur that you can have. We went into the fur house, that showed all the different kinds of fur that hunters can have. They used this trap to get beavers so that they will have smooth fur when they trade it. So they use a trap instead of shooting it like they would other game that they would hunt.

There wasn’t much to see there, it was really small only a few buildings. In 1825 they built Fort Vancouver where WSD is but then they moved it closer to the river to trading. There were nine hundred people living at the Fort by that time. They traded with the Indians and shipped most furs to England. The furs were used for different kind of clothing, mostly the hats that they used back then.

The stuff about the different kind of furs was really fascinating and I enjoyed learning about it. We took our noon photo there and our day ten photo as well. After we took the pictures, we came back to WSD and worked on our journals. Today is the last day and I don’t want to leave, I wish to stay longer like one month, that would be a blast! Well I better go I have a lot to do before we leave to the airport. L What an amazing ten days of fun…this will be a trip that I will always remember! J This is a trip for everyone to remember, including the people who were following us by reading our journals. I know that you got as much out of this trip as we all did. This trip was OUTSTANDING!!!! Also I want to say THANK YOU SO MUCH WASHINGTON SCHOOL FOR THE DEAF FO RLETTING ALL OF ASD HAVE A WONDERFUL AND EXCITING TRIP OF A LIFETIME!!!