Campfires, candlelight illuminate event at Fort Vancouver

There will be a mix of familiar and new activities Saturday at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site’s “Campfires and Candlelight” program.

The annual living history event will be 4 to 10 p.m. at the National Park Service site, 1001 E. Fifth St.

Activities will be divided between those inside the reconstructed fort and those in a Timeline of History outside the stockade walls.

Outside the reconstructed fort, costumed participants in encampments will form a Timeline of History, walking visitors back in time from the World War II era to 1846.

The reconstructed stockade opens at 5 p.m. Inside, costumed staff and volunteers will recreate the night of Sept. 13, 1846 — when the employees of the Hudson’s Bay Company learned about the wreck of the American schooner USS Shark at the mouth of the Columbia River and mobilized to help the shipwrecked crew.