Working Horse Art

For Lovers of Working Horse Art

The true horse lover knows when a working day starts and ends. So does the working horse. You can hear it in their breath, feel it in their sweat and muscles. And you can see it in their tongue and teeth as this photo reveals the effort it takes to get the job done.

 

This photo was captured at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, Vancouver, Washington, on a day historically celebrating when the Hudson Bay Company occupied the land and the laborers, known then as Kanakas, Hawaiian laborers, who were charged with farming the land with horses. Thus this represents the era of the early 1800's. By 1828, the farm “reaped 4,000 bushels of potatoes, 1,300 of wheat, 1,000 of barley, 400 of corn, 300 of peas, and 100 of oats, and in the spring of 1829 they tended 200 pigs, 153 cattle [not including calves], and 50 goats.” By 1829, 200 hogs and an Hawaiian swineherd kept the Fort supplied with pork (*1). This photo represents all the hard work done by the horses of that era in the Pacific North West at the Hudson Bay Company.



If you'd like to read the long story, Hawaiians at Fort Vancouver

*1 Credit to the web site of Fort Vancouver National Historic Site