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Field School Features Lectures at Reserve ; Free Public Talks Center on History, Archaeology

Posted on: Tuesday, 22 June 2004, 06:00 CDT

Four free public lectures on history, archaeology and anthropology will be included in the fourth-annual archaeology field school under way at the Vancouver National Historic Reserve.

The first of the talks, by southern Oregon scholar Jeffrey M. LaLande on Hudson's Bay trader and explorer Peter Skene Ogden, will be Thursday evening.

All four talks will be at 7 p.m. in Hamilton Hall of the Red Cross building on the corner of Hatheway and Barnes roads in the Vancouver National Historic Reserve. Seating is limited and provided on a first-come, first-served basis, said archaeologist Doug Wilson, manager of the field school.

Those attending can inspect the Red Cross building, renovated this year as part of a general upgrade of the west barracks.

The Red Cross building was built in 1918 as a convalescent house for soldiers of World War I and the soldier-loggers of the Army's Spruce Production Division. Hamilton Hall was named after Mrs. Elizabeth B. Hamilton, a Red Cross hostess who managed the building and its activities. After World War I, the building was transferred to the Army and became a NCO Service Club.

Thursday's lecture is called "Peter Skene Ogden: Hudson's Bay Company fur trader and explorer extraordinaire of the Far West."

Ogden, a longtime resident of Fort Vancouver, explored Oregon, Idaho, Utah and Nevada. LaLande will speak of Ogden's little- recognized exploration of southwestern Oregon in 1826-27.

LaLande works for the Siskiyou National Forest and also is an adjunct history professor at Southern Oregon University. His interests range from prehistoric American Indians to the political history of the so-called "State of Jefferson" movement in southern Oregon and northern California.

The other lectures:

* July 8. Greg Burtchard on "The Archaeology of Mount Rainier and Long-term Human Use of High Elevation Landscapes in the Cascades." Burtchard is archaeologist and cultural resources manager for Mount Rainier National Park.

* July 15. David Brauner on "The Archaeology of Fort Yamhill." Brauner is an anthropology professor at Oregon State University.

* July 22. Kent Lightfoot on "The Archaeology of the Russian American Company's Fort Ross." Lightfoot is an anthropology professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

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