Field Notes

From the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, the fur trade stood at the center of a global exchange that linked wilderness to empire.  At its heart was the beaver, whose dense underfur made possible the felt hats that defined European fashion and power for centuries. 

Sauvie Island, nestled between the Columbia River and Multnomah Channel, played a brief but pivotal role in the 19th-century beaver fur trade. In the 1830s, it was home to Fort William, an American outpost aimed at intercepting pelts bound for the British-controlled Hudson’s Bay Company.