wait… which vancouver? untangling mary ann’s journey

wait… which vancouver? untangling mary ann’s journey

I think it is time to straighten out the geography, because I managed to get myself thoroughly confused.

And if I was confused, I suspect I am not the only one.

When I first started researching my ancestor Mary Ann Maranda dit Le Frise, I kept seeing the name Fort Vancouver.

I live in Vancouver, British Columbia.

So naturally, my brain went:

Fort Vancouver… Vancouver… British Columbia?

Then I wondered if perhaps they meant Fort Langley, because I know Fort Langley is an old Hudson’s Bay Company trading post in British Columbia.

Nope.

This is where the map becomes very important.

There are three completely different places that can easily get tangled together:

Vancouver, British Columbia
This is the Canadian city we know today. It did not yet exist as a city when Mary Ann was born.

Fort Vancouver
This was a Hudson’s Bay Company post established in 1824 on the Columbia River, at what is now Vancouver, Washington, directly across the river from present-day Portland, Oregon.

Fort Langley
This was another Hudson’s Bay Company post, established in 1827 on the Fraser River in what is now British Columbia.

So:

Fort Vancouver ≠ Vancouver, B.C. ≠ Fort Langley.

That little geographical correction changed how I pictured my family's history.

now look at mary ann’s journey

Mary Ann's family story gives us a sequence that is much more interesting than simply saying they “moved north.”

Mary Ann described the journey as:

Willamette Valley → Cowlitz → Sooke

And that matters.

The Willamette Valley is in present-day Oregon.

The Cowlitz country is in what is now southwestern Washington, around the Cowlitz River and its surrounding region.

And Sooke is on the southern end of Vancouver Island, in the traditional territory of the T’Sou-ke people.

So this wasn't a journey from one modern Canadian city to another.

It was a movement through a much larger Pacific Northwest world that existed long before today's provincial and national borders.

and this is where my mental picture was wrong

I think somewhere in my head I had imagined something more like:

family packs up, gets into a wagon and heads north.

But that isn't necessarily what this landscape looked like.

The Pacific Northwest was a world of rivers, waterways, trails, portages, canoes, boats and established Indigenous travel routes.

People had been moving through these landscapes for generations.

The Columbia River, Cowlitz River, Fraser River, coastal waterways and the passages around Puget Sound and Vancouver Island were not empty wilderness waiting for Europeans to discover them.

They were already part of a complex network of Indigenous territories, communities, trade routes and relationships.

So when we try to imagine Mary Ann's family travelling north, we have to get that picture out of our heads.

We don't know exactly how they travelled every mile.

We don't know every stopping place.

We don't know exactly which river, trail, canoe route or boat was used at every stage.

Mary Ann gives us the sequence. Historical records give us the geography and historical context. Then we can use our imagination carefully to understand what that journey may have been like.

But imagination isn't evidence.

That's an important distinction.

why were they going to sooke?

This is where the family history becomes especially meaningful.

Joseph Brulé was born around 1831.

His biological father was Jacques Iroquois and his mother was Marguerite, a woman identified in the historical record as being of the T’Sou-ke people.

After Jacques died, Marguerite married Jean-Baptiste Brulé, and Joseph eventually carried the Brulé surname.

Joseph later married Mary Ann Maranda dit Le Frise.

Mary Ann herself had Indigenous ancestry. Her father, Louis Maranda dit Le Frise, was connected to the fur-trade world and had spent years at Fort Vancouver. Her mother was a Kalapuya woman from the Marysville area, according to Mary's later testimony.

So when this family moved north, we aren't looking at a random family travelling into unknown territory.

We are looking at people whose family connections already crossed the region.

Iroquois. T’Sou-ke. Kalapuya. French Canadian. Fur-trade communities. Catholic missions.

These weren't isolated histories.

They were connected.

the border makes the story even more complicated

There is another reason the geography matters.

In 1846, Britain and the United States settled their dispute over the Oregon boundary, establishing the border largely along the 49th parallel.

In 1848, the United States created the Oregon Territory.

But the families who had been living, travelling, marrying and trading throughout this region did not suddenly become strangers because governments drew a line on a map.

The political landscape was changing.

The family landscape was older.

And Mary Ann's journey north happened within that changing world.

so what did they actually experience?

We can reasonably imagine that travelling from the Willamette Valley through the Cowlitz region and eventually toward Sooke was not a simple trip.

There would have been rivers and waterways to navigate.

There would have been established trails and portages.

There would have been communities along the way.

There would have been unfamiliar places — and places that were not unfamiliar at all to people who already had family, cultural or trading connections throughout the region.

There may have been long stretches of difficult travel.

There may have been waiting for suitable conditions or transportation.

There may have been stops with relatives or other community members.

But I don't want to turn those possibilities into facts.

We don't know every detail.

What we do know is the route Mary Ann remembered:

Willamette Valley → Cowlitz → Sooke.

And that alone tells us something important.

the map finally makes sense

For years, I was looking at these places through a modern map.

Vancouver, B.C.

Washington.

Oregon.

British Columbia.

The United States.

Canada.

But Mary Ann wasn't living inside the map I was looking at.

Her world was the Pacific Northwest.

A world of Indigenous nations and territories, rivers and coastlines, trading networks, family relationships, Catholic missions, fur-trade communities and people who moved between places long before today's borders became what they are.

And suddenly that little family-tree clue about Sooke makes much more sense.

I had been looking in the wrong branch.

The connection wasn't through Mary Ann's mother.

It was through Joseph Brulé's mother, Marguerite, who was identified as a woman of the T’Sou-ke people.

And Mary Ann's own testimony gave us another important piece:

Willamette Valley → Cowlitz → Sooke.

One line in an old family history can completely change the picture in your head.

Sometimes genealogy isn't about finding one magical document that explains everything.

Sometimes it's about putting the pieces on the right map.

And sometimes you suddenly realize:

Ohhhhhh. THAT Vancouver. 😂

The people were moving through a connected Pacific Northwest world.

The borders came later.

And if we want to understand our ancestors, sometimes we have to stop looking at the modern map and learn how to see the landscape they actually lived in.