VANCOUVER – Jay Close, retired blacksmith at Colonial Williamsburg, will join National Park Service staff and Fort Vancouver Trades Guild volunteers today for a discussion of the history, art and science of early 19th-century blacksmithing.
The panel discussion will be at 6 p.m. today at the Fort Vancouver Visitor Center, 1501 Evergreen Blvd. It is free and open to the public.
“Blacksmithing was an essential industry across North America as Euro-Americans colonized the continent,” Bob Cromwell, acting chief ranger at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, said in a news release. “It is amazing to see the similarities in blacksmithing techniques used at sites such as Williamsburg, Va., all the way to the other side of the continent here at Fort Vancouver.”
Close and Cromwell will be joined by Tom Dwyer, the president of the Fort Vancouver Trades Guild and a volunteer blacksmith for the National Park Service.
