Catalog of British Columbiana and Pacific Northwest Americana

Salmon River saga chronicles the grueling pioneer settlement and precarious resource extraction along the deep, treacherous canyons of central Idaho's legendary "River of No Return." Platt details how the region's formidable physical barriers—specifically the sheer, towering walls of the deepest river gorge in North America and the violent, rapid-choked currents of the Salmon River itself—strictly dictated the margins of human survival and overland travel. By mapping the arduous daily labor of isolated homesteaders, remote placer miners, and the dangerous downriver navigation of massive wooden sweep boats braving the unpredictable whitewaters, the narrative highlights the immense physical endurance required to carve an existence from this unforgiving inland environment. The utter lack of viable overland routes through the impenetrable surrounding mountain ranges initially forced these remote outposts into an absolute reliance on the perilous riverine highway and grueling high-altitude pack trails, completely anchoring their survival to the severe hydrology and sheer vertical drops of the gorge. Ultimately, this historical record serves as a deeply localized spatial history, demonstrating how the immense hydrological force and extreme, precipitous topography of this inland Pacific Northwest canyon fundamentally shaped the fiercely resilient, strictly isolated character of the Salmon River frontier.

238 pages, 1 unnumbered leaf of plates : illustrations ; 27 cm

After a devastating fish kill on the Klamath River, tribal members and theatre artist Theresa May developed a play to give voice to the central spiritual and cultural role of salmon in tribal life. Salmon Is Everything presents the script of that play, along with essays by artists and collaborators that illuminate the process of creating and performing theatre on Native and environmental issues. This revised and expanded second edition includes a new introduction by the author, and new chapters by Kirby Brown and Marta Lu Clifford.

xvi, 174 pages : illustrations, map ; 23 cm.

Salmon Fishers of the Columbia provides a comprehensive historical study of the commercial fishing industry that dominated the massive, fast-flowing waterway forming the border between Washington and Oregon. The author details how the river's diverse physical environments—from the treacherous, storm-battered estuary at the Pacific Ocean to the steep, rocky rapids of the inland gorge—dictated highly specialized harvesting methods like gillnetting, seining, and the use of massive fish wheels. By anchoring the narrative to specific shifting sandbars and turbulent river channels, Smith illustrates how intense industrial competition ultimately clashed with the physical transformation of the basin through sweeping hydroelectric dam projects. Ultimately, the book serves as an environmental and geographic history, documenting how the relentless power and rich aquatic ecosystems of the Pacific Northwest’s largest river shaped generations of maritime livelihood before the natural waterway was permanently altered.

ix, 117 pages : illustrations, charts, maps, portraits ; 29 cm

Denis Marshall’s toponymic study, Salmon Arm’s Historic Routes and the People Behind the Names, details the spatial distribution, evolution, and biographical origins of named trails, wagon routes, and surveyed corridors across Salmon Arm, Canoe, South Canoe, and Silver Creek. Marshall documents how nineteenth- and twentieth-century colonial road systems—often memorializing pioneer pre-emptors, orchardists, and civic officials—were mapped directly across ancient Indigenous trail networks and seasonal portages navigated by the Secwépemc. The text traces the development of early transit links prior to the adoption of a standardized municipal numbered grid system, preserving the vital geographic history of early homestead routes and valley settlement corridors.

72 pages : illustrations, maps ; 28 cm

The storytelling traditions of Salish-speaking peoples in the Pacific Northwest of North America are showcased in this anthology of story, legend, song, and oratory. From the Bitterroot Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, Salish-speaking communities such as the Bella Coola, Shuswap, Tillamook, Quinault, Colville-Okanagan, Coeur d'Alene, and Flathead have always been guided and inspired by the stories of previous generations. Many of the most influential and powerful of those tales appear in this volume. Salish Myths and Legends features an array of Trickster stories centered on Coyote, Mink, and other memorable characters, as well as stories of the frightening Basket Ogress, accounts of otherworldly journeys, epic cycles such as South Wind's Journeys and the Bluejay Cycle, tales of such legendary animals as Beaver and Lady Louse from the beginning of time, and stories that explain why things are the way they are. The anthology also includes humorous traditional tales, speeches, and stories of encounters with whites. --From publisher's description

xlviii, 445 pages : maps ; 23 cm

189 pages : illustrations ; 29 cm

Published by the Island County Historical Society, Sails, Steamships & Sea Captains: Settlement, Trade, and Transportation of Island County Between 1850-1900 chronicles the maritime foundation of Washington’s Whidbey and Camano islands during the late nineteenth century. The book details the pivotal role played by mosquito fleet steamers, schooners, and daring sea captains in binding together isolated homesteads, timber camps, and agricultural outposts across Puget Sound long before the era of bridges and highways. Through archival photographs and pioneer accounts, the text captures a watery frontier where daily commerce, mail delivery, and social survival depended entirely on wind, tide, and vessel navigation. A keen insight drawn from the work is how insular geography in the Pacific Northwest inverted modern transportation logic; rather than land acting as the primary territory and water as the barrier, the interconnected waterways of Puget Sound served as the region's true main street, dictating the economic rise and fall of early island communities based entirely on their access to passing steamship docks.

vii, 137 pages : illustrations, maps ; 21 cm

As Sam McKinney retraced the explorations of Captain George Vancouver and his men from Puget Sound to Queen Charlotte Sound he wondered, "Could I have been one of them?" In the 1790s, Vancouver's crew rowed for long hours day after day, and camped on rocky beaches in all weathers to chart the intricate coastline for European colonial exploits. Two hundred years later, McKinney followed their ancient path in his 25-foot sailboat, anchoring where they did, meeting the same winds and waves, and sharing "the link of vulnerability that is the ever-present condition of all people who go to sea." McKinney offers insightful comparisons of what sailors saw and experienced, in the 18th century and today, around the Inland Sea. At the end of his trip he, like Vancouver, claimed the area he had explored, "not by deed of ownership but out of love for the place, its staggering beauty [and] the memories of the people and cultures who have found homes along its shores." McKinney invites readers along on a perceptive voyage through time and along the magnificent, storied west coast.-- Provided by publisher

1 online resource (xiii, 209 pages) : illustrations, maps

Every American is co-owner of the most magnificent estate in the world—federal public forests, grazing lands, monuments, national parks, wildlife refuges, and other public places. The writer Wallace Stegner famously referred to public lands as “America’s best idea,” but there have always been some who oppose the idea for ideological reasons, or because they have a vested economic interest. In the current decade, federal public lands have been under physical threat as never before, with armed standoffs and takeovers that the US government has proved stunningly unsuccessful at prosecuting in federal courts. One such incident was the takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Harney County, Oregon, in 2016. Armed militants seized the headquarters of the refuge for forty-one days and occupied the community for three months. Militants threatened and harassed local residents, pledging to “give back” the land to unnamed “rightful owners” in their effort to enact a fringe interpretation of the US Constitution. Drawing on more than two years of intensive fieldwork, Sagebrush Collaboration shows that the militants failed in their objectives because the sensible and hardworking citizens of Harney County had invested decades in collaboratively solving the very problems that the militia used to justify their anti–federal government revolution. In Sagebrush Collaboration, Peter Walker offers the first book-length study of why the 2016 takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge failed. His nuanced and deeply researched account provides the full context for the takeover, including the response from local and federal officials and the grassroots community resistance. It will be essential reading for years to come for anyone who wants to understand the ongoing battle over the future of America’s public lands.

xvii, 238 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Joseph Seltice, Edward J. Kowrach, and Thomas E. Connolly's Saga of the Coeur d'Alene Indians provides a vital indigenous perspective on the historical transitions of the Schitsu'umsh people across the lake shores, river valleys, and timbered expanses of the northern Idaho panhandle. Centered around the critical waterways of Coeur d'Alene Lake, the St. Joe River, and the Spokane River basin, the narrative details how extensive ancestral kinship networks were forced to adapt their traditional seasonal settlements in response to encroaching Euro-American pioneers and Jesuit missionaries. The account traces the tribe's deliberate shift toward cooperative agrarian communities, particularly around the Sacred Heart Mission at Cataldo, illustrating a profound resilience as families worked together to preserve their cultural identity and shared land base. Ultimately, this firsthand history documents the complex struggle of the Coeur d'Alene people to navigate violent frontier conflicts and restrictive federal reservation policies while actively maintaining the deeply rooted familial bonds that sustained their society.

372 pages : illustrations ; 26 cm

"John W.W. Mann offers an absorbing and richly detailed look at the life of Sacajawea's people before their first contact with non-Natives, their encounter with the Lewis and Clark Expedition in the early nineteenth century, and their subsequent confinement to a reservation in northern Idaho near the town of Salmon. He follows the Lemhis from the liquidation of their reservation in 1907 to their forced union with the Shoshone-Bannock tribes of the Fort Hall Reservation to the south. He describes how for the past century, surrounded by more populous and powerful Native tribes, the Lemhis have fought to preserve their political, economic, and cultural integrity. His compelling and informative account should help to bring Sacajawea's people out of the long shadow of history and restore them to their rightful place in the American story."--Jacket

1 online resource (xxiii, 258 pages) : illustrations, maps

Della Gould Emmons’s Sacajawea of the Shoshones explores the remarkable resilience and vital cross-cultural mediation that defined the Lewis and Clark Expedition's groundbreaking transit across the vast, unmapped expanse of the American West. The narrative illustrates how the profound environmental realities of this continental landscape—spanning the towering alpine barricades of the Bitterroot Range, the rushing torrents of the Columbia River basin, and the sheer distances of the high plains—demanded immense adaptability and endurance from the explorers. By detailing Sacajawea’s indispensable role as a guide, translator, and diplomatic liaison, the text highlights how the physical survival and navigational success of the party relied heavily on the sharing of deep, localized indigenous knowledge and established intertribal networks. Ultimately, the account demonstrates that thoughtfully navigating these delicate cultural intersections and cooperatively adapting to a daunting, multifaceted wilderness were essential to peacefully bridging the immense geographical divide between the continental interior and the Pacific seaboard.

316 pages ; 21 cm

S.S. Beaver the ship that saved the West examines the aggressive corporate expansion and strategic maritime fur trade situated along the profoundly fractured, fjord-indented coastline of the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia. Pethick details how the region's formidable coastal macro-geography—specifically the labyrinthine, deep-water channels of the Inside Passage, the treacherous, tide-ripped narrows of the Salish Sea, and the unpredictable, wind-shadowed corridors of the mountainous coastal fjords—strictly dictated the margins of early indigenous trade networks, precarious maritime navigation, and the projection of Hudson's Bay Company authority. By mapping the introduction of the coast's first steamship, a technological necessity deployed specifically to overcome the severe wind-calms and perilous tidal currents that routinely paralyzed traditional sailing vessels, the narrative highlights how this specific complex coastal geography anchored a deeply mobile, highly efficient corporate monopoly that secured the vast maritime frontier against Russian and American encroachment. Ultimately, this maritime and commercial record serves as a macro-level spatial history, demonstrating how the severe navigational hazards, immense linear scale, and vital sheltered waterways of this Pacific Northwest landscape fundamentally shaped the highly strategic, steam-powered character of early British dominance on the coast.

xi, 160 pages : illustrations, map (on lining paper), portraits ; 24 cm

225 pages : illustrations, map, portrait ; 24 cm

On October 1, 1917, prohibition came into effect in the province of British Columbia. Washington and Oregon had gone dry the previous year. The ban on liquor sales led to deadly conflict and legal chaos in the Pacific Northwest, and the legacy of those booze battles continues into the 21st century. Rich Mole introduced readers to West Coast prohibitions pioneer years in Scoundrels and Saloons: Whisky Wars of the Pacific Northwest, 18401917. In Rum-runners and Renegades, he recounts the wild and wacky—and sometimes tragic—results of later prohibition laws through the exploits of both prohibitionists and prohibition-busters, among them Jonathan Rogers, a wealthy Vancouver builder and prohibition leader; the Billingsley brothers, a quartet of handsome bootleggers from Seattle; and enterprising Johnny Schnarr, Victorias number-one rum-runner. From vicious marine hijackers and bedeviled police to corrupt politicians and frustrated drinkers on both sides of the border, this is an action-filled account of liquor and lawlessness on the West Coast.

142 pages : illustrations, portraits ; 22 cm.

Rufus Woods, for more than forty years the publisher of the Wenatchee Daily World, has often been called the "High Priest of the Columbia River." No person deserves the title more. From the editorial platform of the World, Woods tirelessly promoted Wenatchee and north central Washington. For decades he pegged his brightest hopes for the region's future on a huge Columbia River dam in the isolated Grand Coulee region. From 1918 through Grand Coulee's completion in 1941, Woods enthusiastically promoted the largest dam-building project in American history

xvi, 312 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, map portraits ; 24 cm

Royal Family of the Columbia examines the immense regional influence of Dr. John McLoughlin and his family from the strategic nexus of Fort Vancouver, situated on the fertile northern banks of the lower Columbia River. Fogdall details how this commanding geographic position allowed the Hudson's Bay Company to dominate the sprawling Pacific Northwest fur trade, utilizing the massive, turbulent watershed of the Columbia and its tributaries as a vital inland highway that linked the remote, mountainous interior to global coastal shipping lanes. By tracing the family's deep Métis heritage and integration with local tribes, the narrative highlights how indigenous spatial knowledge was absolutely essential for navigating and extracting resources from this unforgiving, heavily timbered wilderness. Furthermore, the book maps how the formidable physical barrier of the Cascade Range left exhausted American pioneers arriving via the overland trail entirely dependent on McLoughlin's agricultural hub, which had been painstakingly carved from the region's rich alluvial plains. Ultimately, this biographical history provides a localized spatial record of how mastery over the immense, riverine topography of the Columbia Basin enabled a single mercantile family to anchor a vast, isolated frontier economy prior to American settlement.

328 pages : illustrations ; 29 cm

"A story of growing up in turmoil, Rough House recounts a childhood divided between a charming, mercurial, abusive father in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, and a mother struggling with poverty in The Dalles. It is also a story of generational trauma, especially for the women - a story of violent men and societal restrictions, of children not always chosen, and frequently raised alone. Tracing her childhood through the working class towns and forests of Washington and Oregon, Ontiveros explores themes of love and loss, parents and children, and her own journey to a different kind of adulthood"-- Provided by publisher

187 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Rosario Yesterdays: A Pictorial History by Christopher M. Peacock is a 1985 architectural and local history volume, published by Rosario Productions in Eastsound, Washington, that chronicles the creation and legacy of the legendary Rosario estate on Orcas Island. The book extensively documents the vision of Robert Moran, a prominent Seattle shipbuilder and former mayor who retreated to the San Juan archipelago in the early 1900s for his health and constructed a sprawling Arts and Crafts-style mansion overlooking Cascade Bay. Through a meticulously curated collection of archival photographs and foundational narratives, Peacock details the arduous logistical challenges of building the remote estate, the intricate craftsmanship of the Moran mansion, and the daily rhythms of early 20th-century island life. Ultimately, it serves as an invaluable, highly visual resource for regional historians seeking to understand the intersection of industrial wealth, architectural ambition, and the isolated maritime frontier of the Pacific Northwest.

72 pages : illustrations ; 28 cm

Immigrants from South Asia first began settling in Washington and Oregon in the nineteenth century, but because of restrictions placed on Asian immigration to the United States in the early twentieth century, the vast majority have come to the region since World War II. Roots and Reflections uses oral history to show how South Asian immigrant experiences were shaped by the region and how they differed over time and across generations. It includes the stories of immigrants from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka who arrived from the end of World War II through the 1980s.

xxvi, 273 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

"From the late 1800s to the present day, Chinese Canadians have made Burnaby into a more vibrant and livable city. Rooted: Chinese Canadian Stories in Burnaby brings together a collection of diverse stories and photographs from the community, celebrating the legacy and contributions of Burnaby’s Chinese Canadian community spanning over a century. This coffee-table book features oral histories and interviews with descendants of multigenerational family farms, green grocers, corner stores, restaurants, and places of worship. Also included are archival research and community perspectives on anti-Asian racism, community activism, courage, and resilience."-- Provided by publisher

pages cm

"A fully illustrated social history profiling forty historic hotels spread over five regions of the southern interior of British Columbia, covering the time period of the 1890s to 1950s. Room at the Inn reveals the long-forgotten histories of British Columbia’s early hospitality industry, through the riveting stories of the men and women who built, ran, and frequented hotels, hostelries, resorts, and roadhouses in the southern Interior. From the Similkameen town of Keremeos to Spences Bridge at the confluence of the Thompson and Nicola Rivers, east to the Alberta border along the Trans-Canada Highway, and south to the Canada–US border, the history of these hotels mirrors the history of BC’s mining towns and boom-bust economy of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as waves of prospectors, settlers, and eventually tourists shaped the culture of the province that we know today. Of the forty historic hotels profiled in this book, all contributed to their communities in various ways. They provided more than just a roof over the heads of weary travellers; they were often the sites of live entertainment, places where community members could meet and socialize. Some even doubled as makeshift hospitals during wildfires and floods. Through colourful anecdotes, meticulous research, and fascinating archival photography, Room at the Inn transports readers to a bygone era and pays tribute to the pioneers, entrepreneurs, and hard-work men and women who built and operated these historic accommodations."-- Provided by publisher

xi, 323 pages : illustrations, map, portrait ; 22 cm

Dorothy Abraham’s Romantic Vancouver Island: Victoria Yesterday and Today provides a geographical and historical portrait of British Columbia’s capital city and its surrounding maritime landscapes. The narrative contrasts the original footprint of Fort Victoria—an isolated Pacific Northwest fur-trading outpost on the island's southern tip—with the cultivated gardens and urban development of the modern coastal city. Expanding beyond the capital, the book maps the broader terrain of Vancouver Island, documenting the pioneer settlements, rugged shorelines, and dense timberlands that define this massive Canadian landmass. Through this localized lens, Abraham captures the physical transformation of this prominent British Columbia island from a wild frontier into an established cultural hub.

120 pages illustrations, map, portraits 23 cm

Published by Shorey Book Store and compiled from historical government records by editors including Glen Cameron Adams, Charles E. McChesney, Herbert C. Taylor, and F. A. Hazeltine, Rolls of Certain Indian Tribes in Oregon and Washington compiles critical nineteenth and early twentieth-century federal census rolls and allotment records for Pacific Northwest Indigenous groups. The volume preserves official documentation detailing tribal member names, family lineages, and demographic shifts during an era of aggressive federal assimilation and reservation-boundary reductions. By gathering these scattered archival enumerations into a single reference text, it serves as a vital genealogical and historical ledger for regional tribes. A keen insight drawn from the work is how bureaucratic instruments like federal census rolls acted as legal mechanisms of dispossession; while ostensibly created to manage annuity distributions and land allotments, these documents simultaneously codified colonial control over native bodies by reducing complex ancestral communities into rigid, state-administered categories.

1 volume (various pagings) : illustrations, facsimile, portraits ; 26 cm

Rogues, buffoons & statesmen chronicles the grueling political consolidation and precarious early statecraft across a vast, geographically fractured territory from the deeply forested, mud-bound legislative encampment of early Olympia. Newell details how the region's formidable physical barriers—specifically the towering, impenetrable spine of the Cascade Range that physically severed the inland and coastal constituencies, the dense coastal temperate rainforests, and the extreme tidal mudflats of southern Puget Sound—strictly dictated the margins of early civic centralization, overland travel, and frontier governance. By mapping the immense physical labor required by early representatives to navigate treacherous maritime routes and perilous mountain passes simply to convene, alongside the monumental effort necessary to construct a centralized, permanent capitol campus atop the heavily timbered bluffs, the narrative highlights the logistical endurance necessary to anchor a unified political apparatus in this demanding environment. The profound geographic isolation of the capital from the rapidly expanding deepwater ports and vast eastern agricultural basins initially forced these diverse, often conflicting regional factions into a strict reliance on the precise topography of early rail and steamboat networks, completely anchoring their fierce legislative battles to the severe climatic and geological realities of the state. Ultimately, this political and biographical record serves as a macro-level spatial history, demonstrating how the severe physical divides, immense geographic scale, and rugged territorial extremes of this Pacific Northwest frontier fundamentally shaped the fiercely resilient, highly contested, and uniquely colorful character of Washington's early political architects.

506, [6] pages : illustrations, portraits ; 27 cm