Catalog of British Columbiana and Pacific Northwest Americana

The Writers' Program and Howard McKinley Corning’s The New Washington: A Guide to the Evergreen State chronicles the comprehensive, state-sponsored industrial colonization and massive infrastructural subjugation of a violently bisected territorial expanse, defined by the towering, impassable alpine barricade of the Cascade Range. The narrative maps how the severe environmental realities of this profoundly fractured topography—spanning the rain-choked, impenetrable coastal timberlands of the Pacific edge, the volatile deep-water labyrinth of Puget Sound, and the vast, sun-baked sagebrush steppes of the inland Columbia Basin—initially paralyzed efficient terrestrial transit and dictated a highly precarious, isolated pioneer existence. By detailing the grueling transition from these vulnerable, disconnected frontier enclaves to the explosive, heavily coordinated deployment of colossal New Deal hydroelectric megastructures, heavy mechanized highway networks, and industrialized timber and maritime extraction, the text illustrates how the modern economic unification of the state was strictly governed by the urgent necessity to aggressively engineer and master these immense geographic extremes. Ultimately, the account demonstrates that artificially domesticating the violent aquatic energy of the Columbia River and violently carving robust, paved transit corridors directly through sheer granite mountain passes were the absolute prerequisites for binding a rugged, untamed wilderness into a highly integrated, mechanized industrial empire on the Pacific seaboard.

xxx, 687 pages, 64 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 21 cm

A glowing description of British Columbia and its settlement possibilities, written by an Englishman who arrived in Victoria from San Francisco in June 1858 to prospect for Fraser River gold

xxviii, 405 pages, 2 unnumbered leaves of plates (1 folded) : illustrations, map ; 20 cm

"The Pacific Northwest coast is home to one of the most diverse displays of intertidal marine life in the world. Featuring sponges, clams, snails, crabs, sea stars, sea anemones, jellies, fishes, seaweeds and more, The New Beachcomber's Guide to the Pacific Northwest is a portable and easy-to-use reference for searching out and identifying any of the hundreds of species of seashore life found on the beaches of British Columbia, Washington and Oregon. Covering the Pacific Northwest's most common shoreline-dwelling flora and fauna, each entry contains a detailed description of appearance and habitat accompanied by colour photos for easy identification of any creature you might encounter as you explore your local beach. This guide also provides simple but essential information on tides and the various habitats within the intertidal zones, to assist beachcombers in exploring safely with minimal ecological impact. The Beachcomber's Guide even contains up-to-date descriptions of the best beachcombing sites and when to visit them--you may even find your new favourite exploration grounds! Thoroughly updated and packed with handy and accessible information, this guide belongs in the beach bag or backpack of any avid naturalist, amateur beachcomber or adventurous family."-- Provided by publisher

410 pages : color illustrations ; 23 cm

The first book-length ethnography of any Western Oregon native group, The Nehalem Tillamook fills an important gap in what was previously known about southern Northwest Coast native cultures. In 1933 and 1934, Elizabeth Jacobs, advised by her husband, the noted anthropologist Melville Jacobs, conducted fieldwork on the Nehalem Tillamook culture of northwestern Oregon. Working with her extraordinarily able Nehalem Tillamook consultant Clara Pearson, Jacobs recorded extensive ethnographic and folkloric materials that far surpass in quality and quantity the Tillamook research of previous investigators. Jacobs's collaboration with Pearson eventually resulted in the publication of Nehalem Tillamook Tales, an exceptional collection of myths and tales recorded in English. But the companion ethnography was never finished. The Nehalem Tillamook grew from that unfinished manuscript. In consultation with Elizabeth Jacobs, the manuscript was expanded and extensively edited by William Seaburg. After Elizabeth Jacobs's death in 1983, Seaburg added careful annotations and a detailed historical introduction. The result is a remarkable book that makes a major contribution to our understanding of Nehalem Tillamook culture and will be invaluable for drawing comparisons with other Northwest native cultures.

xii, 260 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm

Stories about the pioneers who settled the Oregon wilderness of the Nehalem River valley, from the 1860s through the twentieth century

488 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

For centuries, borders have been central to salmon management customs on the Salish Sea, but how those borders were drawn has had very different effects on the Northwest salmon fishery. Native peoples who fished the Salish Sea--which includes Puget Sound in Washington State, the Strait of Georgia in British Columbia, and the Strait of Juan de Fuca--drew social and cultural borders around salmon fishing locations and found ways to administer the resource in a sustainable way. Nineteenth-century Euro-Americans, who drew the Anglo-American border along the forty-ninth parallel, took a very different approach and ignored the salmon's patterns and life cycle. As the canned salmon industry grew and more people moved into the region, class and ethnic relations changed. Soon illegal fishing, broken contracts, and fish piracy were endemic--conditions that contributed to rampant overfishing, social tensions, and international mistrust. The Nature of Borders is about the ecological effects of imposing cultural and political borders on this critical West Coast salmon fishery. This transnational history provides an understanding of the modern Pacific salmon crisis and is particularly instructive as salmon conservation practices increasingly approximate those of the pre-contact Native past. The Nature of Borders reorients borderlands studies toward the Canada-U.S. border and also provides a new view of how borders influenced fishing practices and related management efforts over time.

xi, 271 pages, 27 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm.

The final reports on the survey of the Northern Pacific Railroad route, relating to the natural history of the regions explored, with full catalogues and descriptions of the plants and animals collected from 1853 to 1860

xvii, 72, 399 pages, 58 unnumbered leaves of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 31 cm

Reveals the natural history of the Puget Sound region. This book begins with a discussion of how the ice ages and vulcanism shaped the land and examines the natural attributes of the region - flora and fauna, climate, special habitats, life histories of key organisms - as they pertain to the ecosystem. It contains over three hundred photographs. Winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award. Bounded on the east by the crest of the Cascade Range and on the west by the lofty east flank of the Olympic Mountains, Puget Sound terrain includes every imaginable topograhic variety. This thoughtful and eloquent natural history of the Puget Sound region begins with a discussion of how the ice ages and vulcanism shaped the land and then examines the natural attributes of the region―flora and fauna, climate, special habitats, life histories of key organisms―as they pertain to the functioning ecosystem. Mankind's effects upon the natural environment are a pervasive theme of the book. Kruckeberg looks at both positive and negative aspects of human interaction with nature in the Puget basin. By probing the interconnectedness of all natural aspects of one region, Kruckeberg illustrates ecological principles at work and gives us a basis for wise decision-making. The Natural History of Puget Sound Country is a comprehensive reference, invaluable for all citizens of the Northwest, as well as for conservationists, biologists, foresters, fisheries and wildlife personnel, urban planners, and environmental consultants everywhere. Lavishly illustrated with over three hundred photographs and drawings, it is much more than a beautiful book. It is a guide to our future.

xxiv, 468 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm

Authored by prominent Pacific Northwest librarian and historian Charles W. Smith, The Naming of Counties in the State of Washington offers a precise etymological and legislative record charting the geopolitical organization of the region. The monograph traces the administrative debates and territorial acts that carved up the regional map, documenting the linguistic origins of each boundary, from early districts retaining Anglicized Indigenous names to those explicitly honoring military generals, presidents, and pioneer politicians. A keen insight drawn from the work is how the seemingly mundane bureaucratic act of naming local geography served as a subtle but permanent mechanism of frontier assimilation; by chronicling how early lawmakers increasingly favored the names of distant federal authorities over local indigenous terminology, the text exposes how achieving statehood required actively overwriting the native landscape with the linguistic markers of American imperial control.

15 pages ; 23 cm.

Roscoe Sheller’s The Name Was Olney chronicles the arduous pioneer journey and settlement of Nathan Olney, who established the first permanent non-indigenous trading post at The Dalles in the mid-nineteenth century. The narrative maps the treacherous aquatic geography of the Columbia River Gorge, detailing Olney's perilous descent past the roaring cascades of Celilo Falls on a crude log raft. By focusing on this strategic inland chokepoint—originally the indigenous village of Winquat, meaning "a-place-encircled-by-a-rock"—the book illustrates how the area's formidable basalt topography functioned as the ultimate geographical crossroads for early Pacific Northwest commerce. Ultimately, the text captures the severe physical realities of the Columbia basin, demonstrating how the transition from grueling overland wagon trails to the turbulent, unforgiving currents of the lower Columbia River shaped the region's earliest frontier outposts and indigenous relations.

viii, 171 pages : illustrations, portraits ; 23 cm

The Mount Adams Country: Forgotten Corner of the Columbia River Gorge by Keith McCoy, edited by David A. James, is a 1987 local history detailing the early development and pioneer heritage of Washington's Klickitat County. The book explores the rugged region situated between the White Salmon and Klickitat rivers, chronicling the area's geography, indigenous populations, and the foundational industries like logging that shaped its growth up to the Second World War. Ultimately, it serves as a deeply affectionate, well-researched tribute to the frontier communities and natural landscapes that defined this scenic stretch of the Cascade Mountains adjacent to the Columbia River.

xiv, 196 pages : illustrations, map, portraits ; 29 cm

Authored by researchers from the Vernon & District Family History Society, The Most Difficult of Our Camps: Vernon Internment Camp, 1914–1920 presents a comprehensive examination of Canada's First World War internment operations. The volume meticulously documents the experiences of over one thousand "enemy aliens"—including men, women, and children of Austro-Hungarian, German, and Ottoman descent—detained in British Columbia's interior. Utilizing archival photographs, official correspondence, and detailed biographical sketches, the authors illuminate daily life within the camp and its associated regional work projects. Ultimately, the text contributes a vital socio-historical perspective to the broader discourse on state-sponsored detention, civil liberties, and wartime governance in Canada

389 pages : illustrations (some colour), colour maps ; 23 cm

The Modoc people examines the forced geographic dislocation and fierce territorial defense of an Indigenous population across the harsh, volcanic high desert of the California-Oregon borderlands. Faulk, Dobyns, and Griffin detail how the region's formidable physical barriers—specifically the labyrinthine, razor-sharp volcanic terrain of the Lava Beds and the expansive, tule-choked wetlands of the Klamath Basin—strictly dictated the margins of traditional subsistence and subsequent military conflict. By mapping the tribe's desperate tactical retreat into this impenetrable geological fortress during the Modoc War, the narrative highlights the immense physical endurance and deep ancestral geographic knowledge required to hold off a vastly superior federal army for months. The strategic utilization of extreme topography—leveraging subterranean lava tubes, deep volcanic trenches, and the severe semi-arid climate to neutralize conventional military maneuvers—underscores a profound mastery of the unforgiving inland environment. Ultimately, this ethnohistorical record serves as a deeply localized spatial history, demonstrating how the severe volcanic extremes and rugged topographical confines of this Pacific Northwest frontier fundamentally shaped the tragic, fiercely resilient resistance of the Modoc people against overwhelming territorial displacement.

vi, 104 pages : illustrations (some color), maps, portraits ; 23 cm

Stanley W. Johnson traces the ways that the Milwaukee Railroad shaped the lives of its employees and their families on its route from Three Forks, Montana, to Spokane, Washington

239 pages : illustrations, map ; 24 cm

The author states that the purpose of this book is to "identify and describe the scores of mills that populated the shores of Coos Bay from the 1850s to the 1960s; to record how these mills came into existence, then drifted into history; and to tell the stories of the entrepreneurs who made it all happen."--Dust jacket

xviii, 574 pages : illustrations (some color), facsimiles, maps (some color) ; 29 cm + 2 maps (color ; 77 x 61 cm and 81 x 61 cm)

The Mightiest of Them All: Memories of Grand Coulee Dam by Leonhard Vaughn Downs is a detailed historical memoir and engineering retrospective, published in 1986 by the American Society of Civil Engineers, that chronicles the monumental construction of the largest concrete structure in the United States. Written by a Bureau of Reclamation engineer who spent decades working intimately on the Columbia Basin Project, the book offers a rare insider's perspective on the massive Depression-era public works endeavor. It details the formidable technical challenges, the massive labor force, and the daily realities of taming the Columbia River to generate hydroelectric power and provide regional irrigation. Ultimately, it serves as an invaluable firsthand account and a tribute to the ingenuity, grit, and colossal scale of federal infrastructure development that fundamentally transformed the landscape and economy of eastern Washington.

186 Seiten : Illustrationen

Washington's remote Methow Valley is a wild and extravagantly beautiful place that cradles an amazing diversity of wildlife, topography and people. Residents refer to this land of sparkling rivers, rugged mountains and dramatic seasons as home, while visitors, who flock to the area's unparalleled hiking, skiing, camping and biking, call it heaven. Professional, stunning photography and fluid, informative text highlight this gorgeous photo essay. For the discriminating adventurer and nature lover in everyone.

vii, 88 pages : color illustrations ; 20 x 24 cm

In 1845, an estimated 2,500 emigrants left Independence and St. Joseph, Missouri, for the Willamette Valley in what was soon to become the Oregon Territory. It was general knowledge that the route of the Oregon Trail through the Blue Mountains and down the Columbia River to The Dalles was grueling and dangerous. About 1,200 men, women, and children in over two hundred wagons accepted fur trapper and guide Stephen Meek's offer to lead them on a shortcut across the trackless high desert of eastern Oregon. Those who followed Meek experienced a terrible ordeal when his memory of the terrain apparently failed. Lost for weeks with little or no water and a shortage of food, the Overlanders encountered deep dust, alkali lakes, and steep, rocky terrain. Many became ill and some died in the forty days it took to travel from the Snake River in present-day Idaho to the Deschutes River near Bend, Oregon. Stories persist that children in the group found gold nuggets in a small, dry creek bed along the way. Fom 2006 to 2011, Brooks Ragan and a team of specialists in history, geology, global positioning, metal detecting, and aerial photography spent weeks every spring and summer tracing the Meek Cutoff. They located wagon ruts, gravesites, and other physical evidence from the most difficult part of the trail, from Vale, Oregon, to the upper reaches of the Crooked River and to a location near Redmond where a section of the train reached the Deschutes. The Meek Cutoff moves readers back and forth in time, using surviving journals from members of the 1845 party, detailed day-to-day maps, aerial photographs, and descriptions of the modern-day exploration to document an extraordinary story of the Oregon Trail.

xi, 156 pages : illustrations (chiefly color), color maps ; 24 x 29 cm

"The McLoughlin Empire and Its Rulers reveals an amazing record of a lower Canada family of Scotch Protestant and Irish Catholic descent, which produced three remarkably astute and successful persons to guide the family destiny to a high point. Dr. John McLoughlin, trained as a physician, became the Chief Factor in the Columbia District of the Hudson's Bay Company, where he ruled a vast empire in the Northwest. Dr. David McLoughlin, his brother, also educated for a medical career, became a highly successful doctor in Paris, and personal physician to King Louis Philippe. Their sister, Marie Louise, as Sister St. Henry, found her success as the leading teacher and Mother Superior of the great Ursuline Monastery in Quebec, where she remained alert to the affairs of her family, educated her nieces, and aided in solving family problems. The story comes to light for the first time, through the discovery of a fascinating file of family correspondence, preserved by the Fraser family, relatives of the McLoughlins on their maternal side. It discloses a hitherto unknown side of the John McLoughlin saga - his personal finances, his children, his land holdings in the lower St. Lawrence River valley, and his prominent kin, both McLoughlin and Fraser. A carefully researched and well documented account is presented by Dr. Barker."--Publisher's description

370 pages illustrations, color coats of arms, facsimiles, genealogical table, 2 maps (1 folded) portraits 25 cm

This is about my father's mastery of everything that makes life worthwhile: ships, boats, airplanes, families, oceans, pets, and alcohol. Some of these he managed better than others. A master mariner whose unlimited licenses covered all oceans and any ship's tonnage, he learned to fly airplanes in order to land on docks next to his ship, tamed a kangaroo by playing the organ aboard his vessels, threw good parties and disastrous ones, sailed a 50-foot ketch from Fiji to Juneau, and made "good times" during most of his life, along with a notable failure. He was a Sunset Magazine Chef of the West. He also was a water witch, discovering that he could use dowsing sticks to discover water resources for his community on tiny Orcas Island, off the West Coast, where he treated his friends to cases of Scotch that he dumped overboard in the Strait of Georgia.

vi, 131 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm

Raymond W. Settle’s edited collection, The March of the mounted riflemen, chronicles the grueling 1849 military expedition across the vast plains, treacherous Rocky Mountain passes, and the rugged Columbia River Gorge along the full length of the Oregon Trail. Set against the formidable continental divide and the regiment's eventual terminus at Fort Vancouver, these primary journals detail how the cavalry operated as a tightly knit, mobile community tasked with protecting the massive influx of pioneer families migrating toward the Willamette Valley. By documenting the shared physical hardships of navigating arid deserts and swollen river crossings, the text reveals how these soldiers and the civilian wagon trains they escorted forged deep cooperative bonds essential for surviving the overland journey. Ultimately, this firsthand military record demonstrates how securing this immense geographic corridor paved the way for the enduring domestic settlements and deeply rooted agricultural communities that would soon define the Pacific Northwest.

The March Of The Mounted Riflemen, First published in 1940, is important as the only complete record of one of the longest marches ever made

378 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm

"David Thompson is a hero in Canada, yet has remained largely unknown in the United States. Between 1801 and 1812, this fur trader, explorer, and cartographer established two viable trade routes across the Rocky Mountains in Canada and systematically surveyed the entire 1,250-mile course of the Columbia River. In succeeding years he distilled his mathematical notations from dozens of journal notebooks into the first accurate maps of the northwest quadrant of North America. Information from some of his earlier mapwork was even used by the Lewis and Clark Expedition."

xii, 180 pages : illustrations (some color), facsimiles, maps (some color), portraits ; 27 cm

The management of small history museums outlines the critical curatorial framework required to systematically preserve the localized material culture of pioneer settlement and environmental adaptation across geographically isolated frontiers like the Pacific Northwest. Guthe details how the profound physical isolation of remote communities—whether situated in heavily timbered coastal valleys, deepwater maritime ports, or arid inland deserts—necessitates the rigorous, localized archiving of regional history before it is lost to time and decay. By mapping the precise administrative and cataloging standards needed to curate the heavy tools of resource extraction, maritime navigation, and grueling overland travel, the manual highlights how these small, independent repositories function as the primary guardians of spatial history. The book illustrates that effectively managing these local collections is essential to anchoring a community's identity to its specific, often unforgiving landscape. Ultimately, this foundational museological text serves as a vital methodological guide, demonstrating how the disciplined preservation of physical artifacts is absolutely necessary to document the immense human labor required to conquer the formidable topography and severe environmental extremes of the regional frontier.

78 pages ; 23 cm

"The definitive biography of America's best-known and least understood food personality, and the modern culinary landscape he shaped. After World War II, a newly affluent United States reached for its own gourmet culture, one at ease with the French international style of Escoffier, but also distinctly American. Enter James Beard, authority on cooking and eating, his larger-than-life presence and collection of whimsical bow ties synonymous with the nation's food for decades, even after his death in 1985. In the first biography of Beard in twenty-five years, acclaimed writer John Birdsall argues that Beard's struggles as a closeted gay man directly influenced his creation of an American cuisine. Starting in the 1920s, Beard escaped loneliness and banishment by traveling abroad to places where people ate for pleasure, not utility, and found acceptance at home by crafting an American ethos of food likewise built on passion and delight. Informed by never-before-tapped correspondence and lush with details of a golden age of home cooking, The Man Who Ate Too Much is a commanding portrait of a towering figure who still represents the best in food"-- Provided by publisher

xiv, 449 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm

"Tree sitters. Logger protests. Dying timber towns. An iconic species on the brink. The Timber Wars consumed the Pacific Northwest in the late 1980s and early1990s and led political leaders to ask scientists for a solution. The Northwest Forest Plan was the result. For most of the twentieth century, the central theme of federal forest management in the Pacific Northwest had been logging old-growth forests to provide a sustained yield of timber. During the 1970s and 1980s, however, a series of studies by young scientists highlighted the destructive impact of that logging on northern spotted owls, salmon, and the old-growth ecosystem itself. Combining this new science with newly minted environmental laws like the Endangered Species Act, environmental activists obtained court injunctions to stop old-growth logging on federal land, setting off a titanic struggle in the Pacific Northwest to find a way to accommodate conservation imperatives as well as the logging that provided employment for tens of thousands of people. That effort involved years of controversy and debate, federal courts, five science assessments, Congress, and eventually the president of the United States. It led to creation of the Northwest Forest Plan, which sharply and abruptly shifted the primary goal of federal forestry toward conserving the species and ecosystems of old-growth forests. Scientists went from spectators to planners and guides, employing their latest scientific findings and expertise to create a forest plan for 20 million acres that would satisfy the courts. The largest upheaval in federal forest management in history had occurred, along with a precipitous decline in timber harvest, and there was no going back. In this book, three of the scientists who helped craft that change tell the story as they know it: the causes, development, adoption, and implementation of the Northwest Forest Plan. The book also incorporates personal reflections from the authors, short commentaries and histories from key figures- including spotted owl expert Eric Forsman-and experiences from managers who implemented the plan as best they could. Legal expert Susan Jane M. Brown helped interpret court cases and Debora Johnson turned spatial data into maps. The final chapters cover the plan's ongoing significance and recommendations for conserving forest and aquatic ecosystems in an era of megafires and climate change."-- Provided by publisher

xv, 457 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), maps (some color) ; 23 cm