>> The following is a presentation of KBTC Profiles.

[ Music ] >> In 1776, when the United States was being founded, already our nations, our Indigenous nations, had been founded since time immemorial.

They were independent nations who oftentimes shared culture and language, but were unique in their own ways.

>> The area where Fort Nisqually was established was inhabited by the Sequalitchew Nisqually people.

And they lived in bands and villages along the freshwater creeks and rivers that flowed into Puget Sound.

>> The land at this time was bountiful.

There was fish, salmon, shellfish.

It was generous, and in turn, we were generous to each other and to newcomers and visitors.

>> Fort Nisqually, when it opened its doors in 1833, was a place of commerce for fur trade, and their main customers were the local Indigenous people.

>> Fort Nisqually was one of the first permanent European settlements in the area.

We welcomed them, and we enjoyed having trade with them.

They had cool stuff.

We had cool stuff.

>> Then, as the decade started to change, the Oregon Trail opened up, and a lot of Americans were coming in.

The Hudson Bay Company opened up a subsidiary company called the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, and they were producing food for a lot of people.

>> If you signed up to be a laborer with the Hudson's Bay Company, you were compensated in a few ways.

>> A lot of people don't realize is how little money these individuals actually made.

If they made $100 a year, that was probably a lot.

>> You got a pretty good discount in the sales shop, and you also got room and board.

>> So the blacksmith here would have done a lot of repair work for the wagons.

We know that they repaired springs for beaver traps.

The Hudson Bay Company, one of its primary missions was fur trading.

>> So the sales shop is the store where you come in and buy everything.

So right behind me, we have some fabrics that you can buy.

You've also got shoes and bonnets.

But we also carried things like pots and pans, your teapots.

>> So I think the kitchen at Fort Nisqually is one of the most interesting and important buildings on the site.

Partly because food is something that we can all relate to, right?

The 1850s is really interesting because it was really at the cusp of a lot of changes in how food was preserved.

So it turns out that we don't have canning jars because that technology is still a little ways off.

So we talk a lot about preserving meat by smoking it, preserving food by either drying or fermenting.

>> So one of the fascinating things for me is how the blacksmith here would have -- was so reliant upon basically the entire world trade.

You know, the Hudson Bay Company was a trading outfit.

They needed the steel that came in from England.

They needed the coal that came in from England.

If the coal didn't make it, then we had to make charcoal.

>> When it started in 1833, this was jointly occupied territory.

Both the Americans and the British shared this land.

They didn't really take into consideration that the Indigenous people had been living here forever.

And eventually, the 49th parallel was set as the border between British-held Canada and what is now Washington State.

And so the Hudson Bay Company, being a British company, kind of wanted to go back to British territory.

And they picked up basically all their belongings, left the buildings here.

>> When Fort Nisqually was reconstructed here in Point Defiance Park, it was built by the Works Progress Administration in 1933.

There were two original structures -- the Granary and the Factor's house -- that preservationists wanted to save.

Living History Museums recreate a historical setting using historical interpreters dressed in period clothing, authentic buildings, and period objects to create an immersive experiential look at a bygone era.

>> I like to say to the kids, "Do you guys know that you've time-traveled to 1855?"

>> This is a standard beaver trap, so opened up like so.

This paw came over, and then this beaver trap would be ready to go.

Black powder firearms would have been used very commonly by just about everybody here at the Fort for gathering food and defending from dangerous wildlife.

There was not really much of a martial element here at the Fort.

It was entirely privately owned and operated.

The most common firearm would have been this right here, a smoothbore, flintlock musket.

So this is just a tube with a hole at one end and something to cause an explosion.

Fire in the hole!

>> Today, we have our oyster workshop happening.

It's one of our heritage skills workshops where we teach people heritage skills that they can use to enrich their modern lives.

>> The amount of force to get right in there is really -- was very surprising.

But then once you're in, there's a delicacy.

>> The oyster shucking class has been awesome so far.

It makes me really appreciate all of the people who have shucked oysters for me at restaurants before.

And I feel like they're going to get a bigger tip in the future.

It is an acquired skill.

That's for sure.

>> Today, we learned lots of stuff, but most excitedly, I'm going to go home and make a huckleberry liqueur because we have huckleberries on the island.

>> Washington State's history is obviously an enormous piece of American history.

So a lot of the things that had happened in other parts of America much, much earlier, were happening in Washington in the 1840s and 1850s.

So we're still building roads and connecting settlements.

I think the Pacific Northwest is really the result of so many people from so many different places coming together and having sort of a shared vision of what this part of America could be.

>> I like Fort Nisqually because it looks super real-life.

I like history and like learning about all the stuff that happened in the past.

>> Fort Nisqually is a living history museum because when you walk in the gates, history is alive.

[ Music ] >> Funding for this edition of KBTC Profiles provided by the KBTC Association.

>> KBTC Profiles are available at KBTC.org.

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