Catalog of British Columbiana and Pacific Northwest Americana

A story of the deepest canyon on the North American continent, together with historical sketches of Idaho, interesting information of the state, Indian Wars and mythology, poetry and stories. You asked for it. Here it is, a reprint of the revised edition of “Hell’s Canyon”. I hope you will find it just as valuable as the original printing. The Publisher

575 p. illus., ports., maps. 24 cm.

Wells, Fargo & Co. in Idaho Territory by prominent Western historian W. Turrentine Jackson is a highly detailed 1984 commercial and transportation history published by the Idaho State Historical Society. The book meticulously chronicles the profound economic and infrastructural role this iconic express company played during the explosive Idaho gold rushes of the 1860s and 1870s. Jackson details how Wells Fargo rapidly established vital stagecoach routes, secure banking services, and reliable freight lines that connected deeply isolated mining camps—such as those in the Boise Basin and Owyhee regions—to the broader national economy. By documenting the logistical triumphs over rugged terrain, the consolidation of rival stage lines, and the constant threat of frontier highwaymen, the volume captures the sheer operational scale required to safely move immense quantities of gold dust, commercial freight, and mail. Ultimately, it serves as an authoritative and indispensable resource for regional historians seeking to understand the corporate ambition, financial architecture, and transportation networks that foundationally shaped the development of the territorial inland Pacific Northwest.

120 pages : illustrations ; 27 cm

"This place is romantic and wild": An Historical Overview of the Cascades Area, Fort Cascades, and the Cascades Townsite, Washington Territory by prominent regional historian Stephen Dow Beckham is a deeply researched 1984 historical study prepared for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Portland District. The report meticulously chronicles the complex, layered history of the Columbia River Gorge's strategic Cascades area—a treacherous, vital portage point that dictated the flow of Indigenous trade, early European exploration, and overland pioneer migration. Beckham details the dramatic geographical and navigational challenges of the region, the establishment of early riverfront settlements, and the history of Fort Cascades, a mid-19th-century military outpost built to protect the critical portage routes during periods of intense frontier conflict. Ultimately, it serves as an authoritative, site-specific archaeological and historical resource for scholars and preservationists seeking to understand the military, infrastructural, and cultural heritage that shaped one of the most significant geographic bottlenecks in the Pacific Northwest.

xiii, 171 pages : illustrations, maps ; 28 cm

Mayne Island & the Outer Gulf Islands: A History by Marie Elliott chronicles roughly 120 years of social, economic, and political development across Mayne and its neighboring southern Gulf Islands. Drawing on archival records, oral histories, and pioneer accounts, Elliott highlights how maritime transportation fundamentally shaped local livelihoods—from early homesteading, logging, and hothouse tomato farming to postwar tourism. The book also examines the cultural fabric of these relatively remote communities, notably detailing the significant contributions of Japanese-Canadian settlers before their wartime internment. Finally, it traces the modern struggles over ferry service, rapid land development, and conservation that ultimately spurred the creation of the Islands Trust to protect the region.

x, 152 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Sternwheelers and Steam Tugs: An Illustrated History of the Canadian Pacific Railway's British Columbia Lake and River Service by Robert D. Turner is a highly detailed 1984 maritime and transportation history published by Sono Nis Press. The book meticulously chronicles the creation and operation of the CPR's vital inland fleet, which navigated the often treacherous waterways of British Columbia’s mountainous interior. Turner extensively documents seventy years of the iconic paddlewheelers and robust steam tugs that served as the primary economic lifelines for remote mining camps, agricultural settlements, and early pioneer boomtowns, capturing an era defined by boiling rapids, fierce river races, and regional gold rushes. Ultimately, featuring an exhaustive collection of archival photography, vessel specifications, timetables, and precise scale drawings, it serves as an authoritative and indispensable resource for regional historians seeking to understand the ambitious corporate infrastructure and rugged inland marine culture that foundationaly connected the frontier of the Canadian Pacific Northwest.

xi, 280 pages : illustrations, maps, plans (some color) ; 29 cm

The Selkirks: Nelson's Mountains by J. F. Garden, featuring an introduction by mountaineering historian William Lowell Putnam, is a lavishly illustrated 1984 alpine history and geographical survey published by Footprint Publishing in Revelstoke, British Columbia. The volume serves as a spectacular visual tribute to the rugged Selkirk mountain range in southeastern British Columbia. Garden, a former locomotive engineer for the Canadian Pacific Railway, pairs his extensive regional knowledge with breathtaking color photography to document the area's towering peaks, dramatic glaciers, and rich mountaineering legacy. By chronicling early alpine explorations, standard climbing routes, and the formidable logistics of navigating the Columbia Mountains, the book captures the fierce, untamed beauty of the region. Ultimately, it functions as an engaging, coffee-table-style resource for climbing enthusiasts and regional historians seeking to explore the majestic, high-altitude wilderness and pioneering alpine heritage of the Canadian Pacific Northwest.

143 pages : chiefly color illustrations ; 31 cm

Voices of British Columbia presents the firsthand stories of the people with the courage, the dreams – and the plain stubbornness – to settle the Canadian frontier when it was still wild. These people talk candidly about the tragedy and the comedy, the good times and the rough times. Their authentic voices reveal what it was really like in those early days. Beginning with the legends and true stories of the native peoples, as well as the sagas of the early missionaries, this book tells tales all the way up to the lives and times of modern settlers on the frontier. This book is a collection of stories that appeared in BC’s oral history quarterly, Sound Heritage.

276 pages : illustrations, portraits ; 26 cm

Indian Legends of the Pacific Northwest by folklorist Ella E. Clark, featuring distinctive illustrations by Robert Bruce Inverarity, is a 1984 reissue of a classic 1953 University of California Press compilation that preserves the oral literature of the region's indigenous peoples. The volume gathers more a hundred traditional myths and legends collected directly from tribal elders across Washington, Oregon, Idaho, British Columbia, and northern California. Clark meticulously categorizes the stories into tales of the transformers, accounts of animal people, and explanations of dramatic geographical features—such as the creation of the Bridge of the Gods on the Columbia River or the shaping of Crater Lake. By treating these oral traditions as both high literature and vital cultural history, the book honors the spiritual and ecological worldview of the Pacific Northwest's original inhabitants. Ultimately, it serves as an indispensable and enduring literary resource for educators, folklorists, and regional readers seeking to understand the deep mythological heritage embedded in the physical landscape of the Pacific Northwest.

VIII, 225 S. Ill., Kt.

76 pages : illustrations, maps ; 22 cm

93, [1] pages : chiefly illustrations ; 29 cm

Terence O'Donnell and Thomas Vaughan’s Portland: An Informal History & Guide chronicles the rapid municipal transformation of "The Clearing" into the Pacific Northwest’s preeminent deep-water river port on the lower Willamette. The narrative documents the systematic superimposition of an orthogonal street grid, timber wharves, and early commercial storefronts directly over the riparian bottomlands and sloughs stewarded by Upper Chinookan communities, including the Multnomah and Clackamas peoples. By cutting plank roads through the rugged Tualatin Mountains and capitalizing on the natural head of deep-draft navigation, early entrepreneurs engineered a vital transshipment hub linking interior agricultural valleys to Pacific maritime routes. Ultimately, the work captures how municipal expansion and commercial capital permanently restructured an ancient Indigenous riverine crossroads into an American mercantile center.

x, 211 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Edited papers of the one-day symposium held on February 18, 1984, at Lewis & Clark College, Portland, Oregon, together with the bibliography of the E.G. Chuinard collection of Lewis and Clark materials at the Lewis and Clark College and housed in the Rare Book Room of the Aubrey Watzek Library. This collection consists of more than 370 items of rare books, journals, pamphlets, and reprints, some dating to the decade following Lewis and Clark's successful completion of their epic journey in 1806

x, 72 pages, [1] folded leaf : facsimiles, 1 map ; 23 cm

The consummate authority on the history of Bellevue, McDonald's book chronicles the struggles of its early settlers, mid-century small-town suburbanites and the establishment of the state's leading edge-city of the 20th century. It is a homey folksy narrative laced with abundant names, anecdotes and pictures that provide a charming read and an excellent historic educational tool. Includes references and index.

[6], 151, [1] pages : illustrations, facsimile, maps, portraits ; 26 cm

Publisher description: Rising above the northern part of the Cascades is the magnificent bulk of Mt. Baker - "Koma Kulshan" (the steep white mountain) to the early Nooksack Indians. Long a focal point of human interest, this slumbering volcano has been seen in many different lights - as a sacred object (Indians), a great challenge (mountaineers, explorers), a stimulus for creativity (poets, painters, photographers), a playground (marathon runners, skiers), and as a resource (entrepreneurs, loggers, miners, developers, park administrators). Yet, despite all human actions and aspirations over the years, the mountain retains its majesty, power and mystery. This is the story of man and Mt. Baker, complete with engaging first-hand tales and a wealth of rare historic photos

232 pages : illustrations, maps, portraits ; 23 cm

183 pages ; 23 cm

South on the Sound: An Illustrated History of Tacoma and Pierce County chronicles the evolution of Washington’s "City of Destiny" and its surrounding region from Indigenous roots and early European settlement through its late-twentieth-century industrial growth. Written by celebrated Pacific Northwest historian Murray Morgan alongside Rosa Morgan and Rita Happy, the book combines engaging narrative with a rich archive of historical photographs, maps, and archival imagery. It highlights major regional milestones, including Tacoma's pivotal selection as the Northern Pacific Railroad’s western terminus, the rise of timber and maritime shipping, and local community life. The volume stands as an accessible, visually driven portrait of the South Sound's cultural and economic heritage.

199 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 29 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

approximately 200 pages : illustrations ; 29 cm

ix, 149 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

The era of stern-wheel steamboats on the Clearwater River, Idaho, speaks of a quieter time. Sometimes we long to return to that age. Railroads, which played such an important part in the development of that region, are now as much a part of the past as the steamers. Nostalgia carries our thoughts back to those years as well, when time moved slower in a more peaceful setting. But looking back distorts reality. Stern-wheelers and railroad trains moved clocks rapidly forward, catching the wilderness of North Central Idaho up with the modern times of early 20th century America. They played an important role in the development of the Clearwater Country, just as the pioneer spirit left its important legacy. They must not be forgotten. - author

v, 101, [1] pages + [1] page advertisement : illustrations, map, portraits ; 14 x 19 cm

181, [20] pages, [40], 18 pages of plates (some folded) : illustrations, maps (some color), portraits ; 18 cm

Biography of Charles Bedaux who, among other activities, pioneered a route through the wilds of British Columbia and Yukon to Alaska - the Bedaux sub-arctic expedition in 1934 which left Edmonton on July 6, 1934. (Chapter 8)

xviii, 342 pages, 24 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm

A retelling of the familiar story of the expedition of Lewis and Clark, but told as a complex human story -- the story of a diverse human community moving through the lands and lives of other communities, where pilgrims made their way by the kindness of strangers

xv, 310 pages, 1 unnumbered leaf of plates : illustrations, maps, portraits ; 24 cm

The cry of "gold along the Fraser!" Hured men from around the world. By 1858, 25000 had swarmed into the new colony of British Columbia. Some were experienced prospectors, some dreamers; all were hoping for instant wealth.

Gold Along the Fraser details the experiences-the successes and failures-of these adventurers.

64 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

Charles Lillard’s A coastal range examines how early families and resource workers established resilient, enduring communities along the formidable maritime landscapes of the Pacific Northwest. By detailing the transition from temporary logging and fishing camps to permanent settlements, the narrative illustrates how residents navigated the physical isolation of the Inside Passage's dense rainforests and steep fjords through cooperative labor and tight-knit kinship networks. The text highlights the critical role of shared local folklore and neighborly bonds in helping these isolated groups cope with frontier hardships, leaving behind a rich, traceable record of settlement. Ultimately, the book demonstrates how collective adaptation and regional storytelling transformed a demanding wilderness into a cohesive society defined by deeply rooted family histories and a unique coastal identity.

100 pages ; 23 cm