Fort Vancouver National Historic Site hours and fees

As of November 2026, the reconstructed fort, the Visitor Center and Pearson Air Museum at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site in Vancouver, Washington are open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and closed Sundays and Mondays, according to the National Park Service. Entry to the fort costs $10 for ages 16 and up, the Visitor Center and the museum are free, and Veterans Day, Wednesday, November 11, 2026, is a fee-free day for U.S. citizens and residents. From Enumclaw it is a long drive south, so read the closures below first: everything shuts on Thanksgiving, and the park's own data lists a winter closure from December 21, 2026 to January 5, 2027.

The fort you walk into is a copy. It burned to the ground in 1866, and when the Park Service assigned an archaeologist to find it in 1947, the site was an open field. What stands there now was built, starting in the 1960s, from the archaeology that followed his dig, on the footprint of the Hudson's Bay Company's headquarters for a trade territory that ran from Russian Alaska to Mexican California.

What are the Fort Vancouver hours?

The Park Service's hours page gives the Vancouver, Washington side of the park 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday, for three facilities: the Visitor Center, Pearson Air Museum and the reconstructed fort. Sunday and Monday are closed days. The grounds are a separate matter. In the page's words, "Park grounds are open seven days a week from dawn until dusk," so the paths and the Great Meadow can be walked on a Monday even though every building is shut.

Those hours were read on November 2, 2026, and the page itself says it was last updated December 5, 2024. The page states no calendar rule for them. The alerts and conditions page says an alert will be posted there if extreme weather blocks access; when it was read on November 2, 2026, it showed nothing. By November 9 the park's alerts feed listed one item, for Veterans Day, Wednesday, November 11: parts of East Evergreen Boulevard, East Fifth Street, Fort Vancouver Way and East Reserve Street close from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. for the Veterans Parade, and all park facilities stay open as usual.

When is Fort Vancouver closed in winter 2026 and 2027?

It is closed on Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, the hours page says. The park's data for those dates, published through the National Park Service's public data service and read on November 2, 2026, puts Thanksgiving on Thursday, November 26, 2026, and the two Christmas and two New Year days at December 24 and 25 and December 31 and January 1.

The same data lists something the hours page does not. It carries a "Winter Season Closure" for the Vancouver, Washington facilities from December 21, 2026 through January 5, 2027, with every day marked closed. The hours page points to one too, in a note beside Sunday and Monday that reads "please see Winter Season Closure below," but no such section appears below it. Whether the grounds stay open during those weeks is not stated anywhere that was found. Phone before driving between Christmas and New Year's.

How much does Fort Vancouver cost, and when is it free?

The reconstructed fort costs $10 per person for visitors 16 and older, with the receipt valid for seven days, and visitors 15 and under are free, according to the park's fees page. The Visitor Center and Pearson Air Museum do not charge an entrance fee. An annual pass is $35 and covers four visitors 16 and older; the page lists it as available to U.S. citizens and residents. America the Beautiful passes, the federal multi-site passes, are accepted, and the page says a pass of that kind is the only one a holder needs.

The Park Service sets these prices; they were read on the fees page on November 2, 2026, and that page is where a change would show first.

The free day is a rule, not a one-off. The Park Service's fee-free days list for 2026 includes Veterans Day, November 11, and says that beginning in 2026 free entrance on those days is for U.S. citizens and residents only; nonresidents are charged the usual entrance fee, plus nonresident fees where they apply. The Park Service sets the dates and lists them on that page, so check it each year. One more detail on payment: the fees page says "This park does not accept cash," though its line for the annual pass lists cash or card at the Contact Station. Bring a card.

What can you see at Fort Vancouver in winter?

The reconstruction itself: the stockade, the bastion and several buildings. The Park Service says volunteer interpreters give living-history demonstrations in period clothing, and that you can call the fort's contact station at (360) 816-6244 to ask which buildings are open. Its tours page, last updated in November 2023, says "Guided tours are not currently available at our Vancouver, Washington locations," so plan on the interpretive panels, which the page describes as a self-guided tour.

The Visitor Center has a short film, exhibits and the Friends of Fort Vancouver bookstore, and it is always free. Pearson Air Museum, on the old Army airfield, holds early aircraft and is also always free. Vancouver Barracks, which the Park Service calls the earliest Army post in the region, is mostly closed to visitors, but outdoor panels explain it.

One date to note: the Park Service's event listing for Christmas at Fort Vancouver is Saturday, December 5, 2026, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., at $10 per adult with children 15 and under free and passes accepted. The listing mentions butter churning, crafts and demonstrations in the kitchen and trade shops.

Can you bring a dog to Fort Vancouver?

Dogs are allowed on leash, six feet or shorter, on the outdoor grounds and trails, but the Park Service says "pets are not allowed in any of the park's public facilities, including reconstructed Fort Vancouver." That means no dogs inside the stockade, the Visitor Center or Pearson Air Museum. Service animals are the exception and are welcome.

Is Fort Vancouver a day trip from Enumclaw?

Only a long one, and not on a Sunday or Monday, when the buildings are shut. The fort is in Vancouver, Washington, on the Columbia River across from Portland. The Park Service gives the Visitor Center as 1501 E. Evergreen Boulevard, the fort site as 1001 E. Fifth Street and Pearson Air Museum as 1115 E. Fifth Street, all in Vancouver 98661. From I-5 the directions say to take the Mill Plain Boulevard exit, 1-C. A mapping service will give the drive from Enumclaw; this article did not check it.

The park's travel page warns that southbound I-5 is frequently slow on weekday mornings from roughly 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. and northbound is slow on weekday evenings from roughly 3:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., and that the Interstate Bridge, when raised for river traffic, adds delays. That page dates from 2016, so treat it as a pattern, not a forecast. Free parking is listed at the Visitor Center lot and at Pearson Air Museum; the pages read did not state a fee or a free status for the fort's own lot.

A longer Columbia trip could include Beacon Rock upriver on State Route 14, where the trail closes three days a week from October through May, or the other federal sites in our guide to national parks in Washington state.

What ties Fort Vancouver to the Puget Sound country around Enumclaw?

A winter, and the man who spent it there. According to the National Park Service, George Bush, a former Hudson's Bay Company fur trapper and U.S. Army veteran, led five families across the Oregon Trail in 1844. Oregon's provisional government barred him from settling south of the Columbia because his father was Black, so the group crossed to the north bank and spent the winter near Fort Vancouver, where Chief Factor Dr. John McLoughlin gave them help and temporary work. HistoryLink, the state's online encyclopedia, says that in October 1845 the party left Fort Vancouver for the Cowlitz River and cut a road to Budd Inlet, and that Bush settled that November on what became Bush Prairie near Tumwater. HistoryLink calls them the first Americans to settle north of the Columbia in what is now Washington.

The rest runs on to 1889. The Park Service says that year Bush's eldest son, William, became the first African American to serve in the Washington legislature, and that he introduced the bill that established Washington State University. The year is also the one in our explainer on when Washington became a state. Nine years after Bush's 1844 crossing, in 1853, wagons came down the White River over Naches Pass toward the same sound. And the company that ran the fort also ran a sheep farm on San Juan Island, where the Pig War began in 1859.

Is the McLoughlin House part of the same trip?

No. The park's Oregon City, Oregon unit, with the McLoughlin House and the Barclay House, is a separate site about 25 miles away, open Fridays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The hours page says those buildings close once the first Saturday of December has passed, reopening in mid-February; the park's data lists the closure as starting December 3, 2026. Call (503) 656-5151 before going. The fees page lists no entrance fee for them.

Before you go

Open the hours page and the conditions page that morning, and phone (360) 816-6230 if the trip falls between December 21, 2026 and January 5, 2027. Bring a card, a pass if you have one, and a plan for the 4 p.m. close. Hours, prices and fee-free dates are the Park Service's to change, so read them on its pages rather than here.