Would you have guessed that there were Hawaiians at Fort Vancouver in the 1790s??? That’s along the Columbia in Clark County. An article by Frank Bear in the Clark County Washington History 2014 issue explains how the usual route around the Horn and to the Pacific Northwest included a stop in Hawaii. According to Bear, “Hawaiian workers came by the hundreds; their influence remains.” The explorers, merchants and missionaries would stop in Hawaii and enlist workers for Fort Vancouver. These kanakas (native Hawaiians) worked at a variety of jobs including sawyers, coopers, guards, sailors, gardeners, soldiers, cooks and servants. The Hudson’s Bay Company hired them on contracts negotiated by Hawaiian royalty that left them, in effect, as indentured servants.  Aloha in Oregon, the Owyhee River in Idaho and Kalama in Washington, are all place names reminding us today of the Hawaiian presence even way back then.