Catalog of British Columbiana and Pacific Northwest Americana

Lavender sets the stage with an account of the imperial rivalries between England, Spain, France, and the United States, and their role in Thomas Jefferson's decision to sponsor an expedition that might strengthen the young country's claims to lands it had purchased but never seen. Lavender then takes us through the steps that led to the selection of Meriwether Lewis as the Corps of Discovery's leader with William Clark as coleader. From there the great adventure story unfolds, and we follow Lewis and Clark and their company on their journey through vast, uncharted territory as they seek a transcontinental route to the Pacific.

x, 444 pages, 1 unnumbered leaf of plates : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm

Ruth Busse Allingham’s The way it was: oral histories from Salmon Creek & Deep River provides a vital, firsthand chronicle of immigrant settlement and early industrial labor along the dense tidewater sloughs of the lower Columbia River estuary. Set against the rugged watersheds of Wahkiakum County, the narrative weaves together personal accounts to detail how predominantly Finnish and Scandinavian pioneers mapped their remote logging camps, dairy farms, and salmon canneries directly onto the riverine networks and trade routes long navigated by the Chinookan peoples. The text reveals the immense physical demands of early twentieth-century resource extraction, highlighting how these isolated workers relied on deep community bonds and interdependent alliances to survive unpredictable tidal systems and grueling economic cycles. Ultimately, this collection functions as an essential grassroots history, documenting how the cooperative endurance of rural immigrant families—and their reliance on established indigenous waterway geography—successfully transformed a wild coastal frontier into enduring, culturally distinct enclaves.

152 pages : illustrations, map ; 28 cm

Published by Seattle Public Schools and authored by educator Ruth Pelz, The Washington Story: A History of Our State provides an engaging regional overview designed to introduce students to the complex political, economic, and social heritage of the Pacific Northwest. The book traces the region's trajectory from ancestral Indigenous stewardship and the maritime fur trade through the eras of industrial logging, hydroelectric dam construction, and the rise of modern aerospace and technology hubs. By centering diverse voices and grassroots perspectives, the text moves beyond traditional pioneer narratives to examine how ordinary workers, immigrants, and native nations shaped local communities. A keen insight drawn from the work is how civic education textbooks function as blueprints for regional identity; by intentionally highlighting labor strikes, environmental struggles, and social justice milestones alongside economic triumphs, the book teaches young citizens that Washington's modern prosperity is inextricably tied to an ongoing, contentious negotiation between corporate ambition and grassroots resistance.

303 pages : illustrations, maps ; 27 cm

In the nineteenth century, most American farms had a small orchard or at least a few fruit-bearing trees. People grew their own apple trees or purchased apples grown within a few hundred miles of their homes. Nowadays, in contrast, Americans buy mass-produced fruit in supermarkets, and roughly 70 percent of apples come from Washington State. So how did Washington become the leading producer of America’s most popular fruit? In this enlightening book, Amanda L. Van Lanen offers a comprehensive response to this question by tracing the origins, evolution, and environmental consequences of the state’s apple industry. Washington’s success in producing apples was not a happy accident of nature, according to Van Lanen. Apples are not native to Washington, any more than potatoes are to Idaho or peaches to Georgia. In fact, Washington apple farmers were late to the game, lagging their eastern competitors. The author outlines the numerous challenges early Washington entrepreneurs faced in such areas as irrigation, transportation, and labor. Eventually, with crucial help from railroads, Washington farmers transformed themselves into “growers” by embracing new technologies and marketing strategies. By the 1920s, the state’s growers managed not only to innovate the industry but to dominate it.

viii, 286 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm.

"When Jerry Clapp’s father became warden of the Idaho State Penitentiary in 1945, the young boy quickly learned the rules and boundaries of roaming one of the most dangerous grounds in the West. Through his school years, Jerry would become the confidante to many a wild tale from friendly inmates—an old man serving life for multiple assassinations, a beautiful teenager in the women’s prison, and an incarcerated war hero who became a lifelong role model. These are the stories Jerry would tell his grandchildren—from chilling recollections of riots, escapes, and hangings to the profound remembrances of inmates, guards, and the warden. This fascinating “family portrait” truly brings the Old Idaho Penitentiary roaring back to life" -- from publisher

151 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

ix, 118 pages illustrations 22 cm.

Part adventure story and part spiritual memoir, William Ashworth's The Wallowas recounts a young man's search for the challenges and the solace that the wilderness offers. It's the story of how as a student at Whitman College, Ashworth discovered the Wallowa Mountains in remote northeast Oregon. From that time on, the Wallowas were an obsession. Weekends and vacations were dedicated to exploring a rugged country roughly the size of Los Angeles and home to 126 peaks, each over 8,000 feet high. In language vivid and precise, Ashworth describes as he and a coterie of climbing buddies attempt ascents of Eagle Cap, Pete's Point, Sacajaweja, and the Matterhorn. Climbing and camping in summer rain and winter blizzards, they face the challenge of the Wallowa high country and the humility it teaches. The book tracks the author's coming of age in the wilderness from a need to conquer mountains to an awareness of the redemptive qualities found in these wild places and the need to preserve the last of them. "We need wilderness not only for what it can do for us but for what it can mean to us," writes Ashworth. "We need the wilderness — to grow up in." Twenty years after its original publication, the Oregon State University Press is pleased to introduce William Ashworth's classic memoir to a new generation of readers.

174 pages : 1 map ; 23 cm.

The Sutil and Mexicana sailed along the coast of the Pacific Northwest in 1792, their stated mission to put to rest the persistent rumors of the mythical strait connecting the Pacific and Atlantic in the neighborhood of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the present-day border of Canada and the United States. This would be the last Spanish exploration along the Pacific Coast after 250 years of primacy in charting those waters

260 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm.

Four of the greatest maritime exploring expeditions were crammed into two decades late in the 18th century - Cook's third voyage, the French expedition commanded by La Pérouse, the Malaspina expedition sent out by Spain, and George Vancouver's Voyage of Discovery. All four visited the northwest coast of North America, but weather and circumstances prevented Cook from making more than what Beaglehole calls ' a magnificent, an epoch-making reconnaissance'; La Pérouse only touched the coast in a significant way at Yakutat Bay and Lituya Bay, and Malasina's memorable visits were to Yakutat Bay and Nootka Sound. Vancouver, by contrast, surveyed the enormous extent of coast from Lower California to Cook Inlet, and his meticulous survey literally set out on the map of the world the intricacies of Puget Sound and the western coast of mainland Canada. It was an achievement that places him with his mentor, Cook, in the first rank of marine surveyors. As a midshipman Vancouver had been with Cook when he discovered the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands in 1778. They attracted his interest, and the attention he devoted to the islands, their inhabitants and their political future when he twice later wintered there will surprise many. This is the first annotated edition of Vancouver's journal as he revised it for publication in 1798. The original manuscript has disappeared, but fortunately no fewer than 25 partial or complete logs or journals by other members of the expedition have survived. These supplement Vancouver's narrative at many points. It has been possible to identify virtually all the host of islands, channels and inlets that Vancouver encountered, and the provenance of most of the approximately 400 place names he bestowed, nine out of ten of which are still in use, is indicated. Book 1 of a new and annotated edition of A Voyage of Discovery ... (London, 1798). The main pagination of this and the following three volumes is continuous. The voyage to Australia and Tahiti,

4 volumes illustrations 1 chart

Cascade Head, on the Oregon Coast between Lincoln City and Neskowin, has stunning ocean views, abundant recreational opportunities, and a rich history of ecological research and conservation. Its landscape and seascape support a multitude of species, some of which are threatened, such as the Oregon silverspot butterfly, spotted owl, and coho salmon. In The View from Cascade Head, Bruce Byers tells the fascinating story of this special place and the people who have worked to protect it. Drawing from his lifelong relationship with the Oregon Coast and recent experience living and working at Cascade Head, Byers weaves together personal observations, ecological science, and the history and philosophy of nature conservation in a series of interconnected essays. Cascade Head is Oregon’s only biosphere reserve, part of the international network of biosphere reserves coordinated by UNESCO. Biosphere reserves around the world are laboratories for understanding how humans affect ecosystems and models for how we can heal the human-nature relationship. The View from Cascade Head illustrates three main lessons: the actions and efforts of committed individuals can make a difference; ecological mysteries still abound despite decades of scientific research; and our worldviews—how we think about our place in nature—shape our individual and collective effect on the ecosystems we inhabit. Byers helps us understand how these lessons apply everywhere and can lead us toward a more sustainable relationship with our home planet.

223 pages : illustrations, map ; 23 cm

Wonderfully written history of the ever-troubled Victoria and Sidney Railway in British Columbia. Packed with black and white photos, the book brings the railway and the people who ran it (and the long-suffering passegers) to life while providing a fascinating look at life in rural Canada at the turn of the century. With maps, equipment rosters, chronology and numerous appendices that flesh out the history of the Saanich Peninsula. 236 pages.

236 pages : illustrations, maps, portraits ; 28 cm

Published by the Vancouver Natural History Society and authored by Jim Peacock, The Vancouver Natural History Society, 1918–1993 chronicles seventy-five years of grassroots ecological stewardship, amateur scientific research, and outdoor exploration in southwestern British Columbia. The book details the organization's instrumental role in advocating for provincial parks, documenting regional flora and fauna, and fostering a community-wide appreciation for the natural landscapes surrounding a rapidly expanding urban center. Through archival logs, club newsletters, and biographical sketches, the text highlights how dedicated citizen scientists successfully pushed back against unbridled resource extraction to protect local wilderness. A keen insight drawn from the work is how amateur natural history societies functioned as the vanguard of early environmentalism; by mobilizing urban citizens into weekend field trips and systematic species observation, the society turned ordinary nature enthusiasts into passionate political defenders of British Columbia's imperiled ecosystems.

104 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

The author was born in London in 1870. At the age of 16 he went to sea, sailing around the Horn to San Francisco. In 1889, he moved to British Columbia, and engaged in ranching and other occupations in the Okanagan country. In 1937, he moved to Victoria, where he wrote this, his first book

357 pages : illustrations (some color), map (on lining-papers) ; 25 cm

"In 1860 on the South Alternate Route of the Oregon Trail in the Snake River Country of present day Idaho and Oregon. A rare instance when Indians not only attempted but maintained a successful attack on encircled emigrant wagons. Attacks on the Utter wagon train and then on the survivors resulted in the greatest loss of life to an emigrant train and to the attacking Indians, of any such encounters. Survivors' starvation camp on the Owyhee River and eventual rescue by an army expedition commanded by Captain Frederick T. Dent (his sister married U.S. Grant). Discovery of the Van Ornum massacre -- the bodies "gleaming in the moonlight"--By a fast-moving dragoon force led by Lieutenant Marcus A. Reno (later with Custer at the Little Big Horn). Two-year attempt to rescue children held captive by the Shoshoni as the US Army disintegrated at the onset of the Civil War."--Cover

xvii, 218 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm.

The Untamed Olympics: The Story Of A Peninsula is a non-fiction book written by Ruby El Hult. The book provides a detailed account of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, USA, and its history, geography, and natural beauty. The author takes the reader on a journey through the history of the region, from the early Native American tribes that lived there, to the arrival of European explorers, and the logging and fishing industries that developed in the area.The book also focuses on the unique and diverse wildlife that inhabits the Olympic Peninsula, including elk, deer, black bears, and mountain lions. The author describes the breathtaking landscapes of the region, including the Olympic Mountains, the Hoh Rainforest, and the rugged coastline.In addition to its natural beauty, the Olympic Peninsula is also home to many fascinating cultural landmarks, such as the Makah Indian Reservation, the historic town of Port Townsend, and the Victorian-era Lake Quinault Lodge.Overall, The Untamed Olympics: The Story Of A Peninsula is a comprehensive and engaging exploration of one of America's most beautiful and fascinating regions. The author's vivid descriptions and personal anecdotes make the book a must-read for anyone interested in the history and natural wonders of the Olympic Peninsula.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work. This description may be from another edition of this product.

267 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

The Northwest has been at the forefront of forest management and research in the United States for more than one hundred years. In The U.S. Forest Service in the Pacific Northwest, Gerald Williams provides an historical overview of the part the Forest Service has played in managing the Northwest’s forests. Emphasizing changes in management policy over the years, Williams discusses the establishment of the national forests in the region, grazing on public land, the Great Depression, World War II, and the rise of multiple-use management policies. He draws on extensive documentation of the post-war development boom to explore its effects on forests and Forest Service workers. Presenting such controversial issues as roadless areas and wilderness designation, timber harvesting, forest planning, ecosystems, and spotted owls, Williams demonstrates the impact of 1970s environmental laws on national forest management. The book is rich in photographs, many drawn from the Gerald W. Williams Collection, Oregon State University Archives. Extensive appendices provide detailed data about Pacific Northwest forests. Chronicling a century of the agency’s management of almost 25 million acres of national forests and grasslands for the people of the United States, The U.S. Forest Service in the Pacific Northwest is a welcome and overdue resource. This work was completed through the collaborative efforts of the author and the Pacific Northwest Forest Service Association, with support from the U. S. Forest Service.

x, 416 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm

"Few people in the nineteenth-century American West could boast the achievements of Peter Burnett. He helped organize the first major wagon train to the Oregon Country. He served on Oregon's first elected government and was Oregon's first supreme court judge. He opened a wagon road from Oregon to California. He worked with the young John Sutter to develop the new city of Sacramento. Within a year of arriving in California, voters overwhelmingly elected him as the first US governor. He also won appointment to the California Supreme Court. It was one heck of a resume. Yet with the exception of the wagon road to California, in none of these roles was Burnett considered successful or well remembered. Indeed, he resigned from many of his most important positions, including the governorship, where he was widely perceived a failure. Burnett's weakness was that he refused to take advice from others. He insisted on marching to his own drum, even when it led to some terrible decisions. A former slaveholder, he could never seem to get beyond his single-minded goal of banning blacks and other minorities from the West. The Troubled Life of Peter Burnett is the first full-length biography of this complicated character. Historians, scholars, and general readers with an interest in Western history will welcome R. Gregory Nokes' accessible and deeply researched account."-- Provided by publisher

xi, 270 pages : illustrations, map ; 23 cm

The history of Bovill, Idaho, from its early days into the 1930s, written by John B. Miller. Miller was born on a Latah County homestead near Bovill and was a University of Idaho graduate with a degree in geology.

xi, 214 pages : illustrations, maps, portraits ; 24 cm

Ancient and carbon-rich, old-growth forests play an irreplaceable role in the environment. Their complex ecosystems clean the air, purify the water, cool the planet, and teem with life. In a time of climate catastrophe, old-growth and other natural forests face existential threats caused by humans—and their survival is crucial to ours. In a bicoastal journey, environmental journalist Lynda V. Mapes connects the present and future of Pacific Northwest forests to the hard-logged legacy forests of the northeastern United States. Beginning in Oregon and Washington, where old growth supports, and is supported by, the region’s salmon, we meet Jerry Franklin, who led scientists in recognizing and studying the distinctiveness of these majestic spaces. From there, we journey to Vancouver Island, where Indigenous activists and scientists strive to preserve the health of Nuu-chah-nulth traditional homelands amid continued clearcutting. On the East Coast, we see the corduroy patterns of lands that have been logged for generations, leaving industrial carnage along formerly life-filled waterways. Mapes interviews Penobscot elders and scientists whose new practices are restoring the fish runs, as well as loggers using new technologies to harvest more sustainably. With vibrant storytelling supported by science and traditional ecological knowledge, Mapes invites readers to understand the world where trees are kin, not commodities. The Trees Are Speaking is essential reading for those with a deep interest in environmental stewardship, Indigenous land rights, and the urgent challenges posed by climate change.

pages cm

Goldwin Smith’s The Treaty of Washington, 1871: A study in imperial history provides a macro-geopolitical analysis of the diplomatic agreements that permanently finalized the maritime borders of the Pacific Northwest. While the text broadly addresses the reconciliation between the United States and Great Britain, for regional historians, its crucial focus lies in its documentation of the resolution to the San Juan Islands boundary dispute. Smith details how distant diplomats utilized international arbitration to draw a rigid federal border through the Haro Strait, artificially dividing a complex archipelago that had long functioned as a unified, ancient maritime crossroads for the Coast Salish peoples. The treaty's ratification officially validated the civic claims and frontier infrastructure of early island pioneers, who had relied heavily on deep community bonds and interdependent alliances with both indigenous populations and occupying military garrisons to survive the precarious, decades-long standoff of the "Pig War." Ultimately, this institutional study illustrates how federal treaties forcefully superimposed sweeping imperial maps directly onto established indigenous aquatic networks, transforming a fluid, culturally managed seascape into a strictly delineated frontier of American maritime logistics.

xiii, 134 pages ; 24 cm.

The Trail blazer history of the development of southeastern Idaho chronicles the grueling overland migration and precarious pioneer settlement across the sweeping, semi-arid high plains and rugged intermountain valleys of the Upper Snake River basin. The Daughters of the Pioneers detail how the region's formidable environmental constraints—specifically the profound lack of natural precipitation across the sagebrush steppes, the severe winter climatic extremes of the inland high desert, and the challenging topographic corridors funneled between imposing mountain ranges—strictly dictated the margins of early homesteading and agricultural expansion. By mapping the immense physical labor required to carve permanent agrarian communities from this unforgiving landscape and the strategic establishment of complex irrigation networks to divert the lifeblood of regional rivers, the narrative highlights the monumental cooperative effort necessary to forcibly convert the arid terrain into a highly productive agricultural grid. The absolute necessity of securing reliable water sources and navigating the precise geographic chokepoints of the overland trails forced these isolated pioneer settlements into a strict reliance on the severe hydrology and topography of the inland routes. Ultimately, this compiled historical record serves as a deeply localized spatial history, demonstrating how the vast, open terrain and harsh climatic realities of the inland Pacific Northwest frontier fundamentally shaped the fiercely resilient, agriculturally dependent character of southeastern Idaho's foundational communities.

iii, 215 pages : illustrations, maps ; 22 cm

Mount Constitution is a dramatic mountain crowning Orcas Island in the central Salish Sea. On the very tip of the mountain is a 60 foot Medieval stone tower. From its dramatic vantage point it looks south beyond Mount Rainer and the Olympic Peninsula, east to Mount Baker and the Cascades, west over Vancouver Island, and North beyond the city of Vancouver and the southern ranges of Canada. The tower was built in the Great Depression by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) when young men relocated to camps across the United States and built things. Many useful and many romantic ideals, often both. The CCC built a beautiful romantic tower in a stunning location on the top of a mountain on an Emerald Isle in the Salish Sea. That tower still stands proud today and hosts a million visitors a year. Some visit it regularly like a secular church. Rolf Eriksen has been intimately involved with Orcas Island, Mount Constitution and the CCC tower over many years since the 1950’s. He has rebuilt parts of it and surveys it with a loving eye every week. The tower and that mountain are a part of Rolf and he is a part of them. This book is Rolf ’s story of the tower and a scrapbook of collected images.

94 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 22 cm

Debates over the fate of ancient forests have been commonplace in the Pacific West for decades. The Tillamook takes up the question of younger forests, exploring the creation of a managed forest and what its story reveals about the historic and future role of second-growth forests. It was Oregon's most notorious conflagration-a series of four major fires that struck the Tillamook forest beginning in 1933 and recurred with bizarre regularity through 1951. The fires burned 355,000 acres of virgin forest and became collectively known as the Tillamook Burn. In this engaging history, Gail Wells recounts the story of these famous fires and the cooperative efforts of foresters and ordinary citizens-including thousands of schoolchildren-to get young trees growing again on the burned landscape. It became one of the largest forest rehabilitation efforts ever, resulting in a created forest that promised "timber forever." Now a state forest, the Tillamook is coming of age at a time when attitudes toward forests have changed and "timber forever" is no longer the guiding principle. In contemplating the Tillamook's fate, Wells traces the historic roots of competing perspectives on forest use and examines the contemporary debate over forest issues. She sees the future of second-growth forests as holding the possibility of a workable synthesis, "a truly stable, sustainable, and humane relationship with our forests." In a new epilogue, Wells updates the story of the Tillamook five years after her book was first published, and explains why the fate of the forest remains uncertain.

viii, 184 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm.

The following description of the Thompson Indians is based on two manuscripts prepared by Mr. James Teit, - the one a description of the Upper Thompson Indians, written in 1895; the other a description of the Lower Thompson Indians, written in 1897 as a result of work done by Mr. Teit for the Jesup North Pacific Expedition.

pages 163-392. illustrations (including map) plates XIV-XX. 36 cm

Tanoak (Notholithocarpus densiflorus) is a resilient and common hardwood tree native to California and southwestern Oregon. People’s radically different perceptions of it have ranged from treasured food plant to cash crop to trash tree. Having studied the patterns of tanoak use and abuse for nearly twenty years, botanist Frederica Bowcutt uncovers a complex history of cultural, sociopolitical, and economic factors affecting the tree’s fate. Still valued by indigenous communities for its nutritious acorn nut, the tree has also been a source of raw resources for a variety of industries since white settlement of western North America. Despite ongoing protests, tanoaks are now commonly killed with herbicides in industrial forests in favor of more commercially valuable coast redwood and Douglas-fir. As one nontoxic alternative, many foresters and communities promote locally controlled, third-party certified sustainable hardwood production using tanoak, which doesn’t depend on clearcutting and herbicide use. Today tanoaks are experiencing massive die-offs due to sudden oak death, an introduced disease. Bowcutt examines the complex set of factors that set the stage for the tree’s current ecological crisis. The end of the book focuses on hopeful changes including reintroduction of low-intensity burning to reduce conifer competition for tanoaks, emerging disease resistance in some trees, and new partnerships among tanoak defenders, including botanists, foresters, Native Americans, and plant pathologists.

xvi, 219 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm