Fort Vancouver expands annual evening event

Fort Vancouver National Historic Site’s free Campfires and Candlelight event will be expanded on Sept. 8 with more military camps, music and black-powder demonstrations.

Campfires and Candlelight is Fort Vancouver’s largest annual re-enactment, featuring more than 150 costumed interpreters.

Many of them will be part of a Timeline of History that starts at 4 p.m. at Pearson Air Museum, 1115 E. Fifth St.

Visitors can walk along the Spruce Mill Trail and see U.S. Army camps and hear military music from several eras. Visitors will encounter Oregon Trail immigrants and people who worked at the fort during different periods of history.

Inside the fort, visitors will overhear discussions of Sept. 13, 1846, when the Hudson’s Bay Company prepared to aid the crew of the USS Shark, an American naval vessel that had wrecked at the mouth of the Columbia River.

The usual admission fees at Pearson Air Museum and the reconstructed fort will be waived for “Campfires and Candlelight.”

The schedule for Fort Vancouver also will change because of the event; the fort’s hours on Sept. 8 will be 5 to 10 p.m. All event areas will close at 10 p.m.

Parking is limited.