Viewing Object

www.parkscanada.gc.ca/langley ***** The Hudson's Bay Company established Fort Langley in 1827 about 50 km. from the mouth of the Fraser River. The Company's first fort was established on the Fraser River in present day Derby Reach Regional Park, two miles downstream from what is now the village of Fort Langley. Recognition that the site of the fort was vulnerable to flooding and too far from its farming operations resulted in its relocation further upstream on a higher piece of land. A second fort was thus established at the site of the current reconstructed Fort in 1839. It burned in 1840 and was immediately rebuilt in the same location. The Fort mainly served as a provisioning post producing agricultural products and Salmon. The Hudson's Bay Company Fort went to pasture after the company moved its operations to the village of Fort Langley in 1886. From 1888 to the 1920's, the Mavis family farm occupied the land that would later become a National Historic Site. In the late teens and early 1920's, many became interested in the preservation of the historic fort site. Fort Langley was recognized by the federal government's Historic Sites and Monuments Board. At the Board's urging, the local community raised money to purchase three acres of the fur trading post in 1924, including the last remaining building. The HSMB and Native Sons unveiled a plaque commemorating the site in 1925. Between 1931 and 1958, the Native Sons operated a museum display in the Store House, the last remaining Hudson's Bay Company building. In 1955, the Fort was declared a National Historic Site. During the 1958 Centennial (the 100 year anniversary of Governor James Douglas declaring the mainland of present-day British Columbia a British colony), the federal government undertook the partial reconstruction of palisades and buildings at the Fort. The same year saw the construction of the Langley Centennial Museum.

Maureen Sankey was born in Vancouver and attended Lord Kitchener Elementary and Lord Byng Secondary. She earned her BA and teaching certificate from UBC in 1955, and her M.Ed. from Western Washington University in 1975. Maureen taught at Kitsilano and Killarney Secondary Schools before moving to south Aldergrove with her first husband in 1962. After teaching at Clearbrook Secondary for a year, she spent 22 years at Aldergrove Secondary as a teacher and then as Langley's first female vice-principal. During this time she was the Langley Teachers' Assoc. president (1973-74). She became the vice-principal of Langley Secondary in 1984 and retired in 1992, but worked part time at the Langley Education Centre after that. Maureen married A. E. (Fred) Pepin in 1977. She has one daughter, Jane, and a grandaughter Chelsea. Maureen was an active member of the Fraser Valley Hunt Club and the Langley Scholarship Comittee. In her retirement, she co-wrote" Roads and Place Names", edited "The Place Between", and co-wrote "The History of Langley Schools: 1867-2004." (2005) She was a volunteer at the Valley Therapeutic Equestrian Association, a member of the Langley Heritage Association, and a docent at the Langley Centennial Museum.

Mayor of the Langley Township in 1993.