The Hudson's Bay Company, experiencing high demand from Europe for fur based textiles in the early nineteenth Century, had been forced to expand its fur trade operations across North America to the Pacific Northwest.

Until the establishment of Fort Vancouver, the Hudson's Bay Company's largest westward fort was Fort William in present day Ontario, which the company had gained through its merger with the North West Company.

From its establishment, Fort Vancouver is the regional headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company's fur trade operations in the Columbia District.

The territory it oversees stretched from the Rocky Mountains in the East to the Pacific Ocean in the West, and from Sitka, Alaska in the North to San Francisco in the South.

Fur trappers bring pelts collected during the winter to the fort to be traded in exchange for company credit.

The credit, issued by the company clerks, can be used to purchase goods in the fort's trade shops.

Furs from throughout the Columbia District are brought to Fort Vancouver from smaller Hudson's Bay Company outposts either overland, or by water via the Columbia River.

Once they are sorted and inventoried by the Company's clerks, the furs are hung out to dry in the fur storehouse, a large two story post on sill type building located within the walls of the fort.

After the furs are processed, they are mixed, weighed into two hundred and seventy pound- (one hundred and twenty kilogram) bundles, and packed with tobacco leaves as an insecticide.

The bundle of furs is then placed in a large press and wrapped in elk or bear hide to create overseas fur bales.

The large bales are then placed on boats on the Columbia River for shipment to London via the Hudson's Bay Company trade routes.

The furs are ultimately auctioned off to textile manufacturers in London.

A large demand comes from hatters who produce popular beaver felted hats.