Catalog of British Columbiana and Pacific Northwest Americana

Harbor Press [Published date: 1990]. Soft cover, 214 pp. [Excerpt from rear cover] More than 1.5 million people ride the ferry each year to the San Juan Islands. Thousands more visit the archipelago by private boat or plane. All agree the San Juans are a national treasure. Stunningly beautiful, the islands have become a special place to live and visit. How did they become what they are? Who were the first settlers whose decisions shape today? What about the soldiers, the Indians, the smugglers, the pioneer families? Lucile S. McDonaId, one of Washington's most-honored historians, explores the earliest days in the islands and captures the essence of the island spirit that lives today. For those who love the islands, Making History: The People Who Shaped the San Juan Islands is a delightful, fast-paced and fascinating adventure.

214 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm

G.W. Thompson and the Powell River Heritage Research Association’s Boats, bucksaws, and blisters: pioneer tales of the Powell River area chronicles the grueling physical labor and community resilience required to settle the rugged northern stretches of British Columbia's Sunshine Coast. Set against a demanding maritime landscape defined by dense old-growth timber, deep coastal inlets, and isolated bays, the collection reveals how early logging families and maritime workers adapted their daily lives to survive in remote, water-access-only extraction camps. Through personal pioneer accounts, the narrative illustrates how these initially fragmented groups of laborers forged tight-knit kinship networks and cooperative support systems to transition from raw frontier survival toward establishing permanent coastal homesteads. Ultimately, these gathered local histories document how shared endurance and neighborly bonds laid the foundational civic and cultural roots of the modern Powell River community amidst a formidable wilderness.

410 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm

Daphne Sleigh’s The people of the Harrison chronicles the profound demographic and industrial evolution of the Harrison River and Harrison Lake corridors within British Columbia's eastern Fraser Valley. Set against a dramatic landscape of deep waterways, rugged valleys, and geothermal springs, the narrative details how early Indigenous communities and subsequent waves of prospectors, loggers, and homesteaders adapted to the geographic isolation of frontier outposts like Harrison Mills and Port Douglas. By tracing the cooperative development of regional resource extraction and early tourism around Harrison Hot Springs, the text reveals how transient work camps gradually coalesced into permanent towns through tight-knit kinship networks and shared labor. Ultimately, the history demonstrates that collaboratively navigating this demanding watershed and establishing enduring neighborly ties were essential steps in forging the resilient family settlements that define the modern Harrison region.

278 p., [30] p. of plates : ill. ; 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. Evans’s Powerful rockey: the Blue Mountains and the Oregon Trail, 1811-1883 explores the formidable geographic barriers and the profound overland adaptation required to navigate the final, grueling alpine stretches of the western migration route in northeastern Oregon. The narrative illustrates how the severe environmental realities of this rugged topography—defined by steep, densely timbered ridges, deep river ravines, and the sudden, harsh elevation gains rising abruptly from the arid eastern plains—required immense physical resilience and shared, cooperative labor from exhausted nineteenth-century emigrants. By detailing the gradual transition from precarious indigenous footpaths utilized by early fur trappers to the cooperative clearing of widened wagon roads and subsequent commercial toll routes, the text highlights how overcoming this massive geological hurdle was a defining, communal crucible for pioneers. Ultimately, the account demonstrates that patiently conquering the severe inclines of the Blue Mountains and collaboratively establishing vital supply settlements in the surrounding valleys were essential steps in transforming a treacherous wilderness barrier into an enduring, deeply rooted conduit for the civic and agricultural expansion of the Pacific Northwest.

xv, 374 pages : illustrations, maps ; 26 cm

Gregory M. Franzwa’s Maps of the Oregon Trail explores the profound spatial documentation and cooperative overland navigation that defined the massive pioneer migration to the Pacific Northwest. The cartographic narrative illustrates how the severe environmental realities of this transcontinental topography—spanning treacherous river fords, arid high-desert basins, and the grueling alpine passes of the Rocky and Cascade mountain ranges—required immense physical resilience and shared geographic adaptation from nineteenth-century emigrants. By detailing the gradual transition from precarious, unmarked wilderness paths to a meticulously charted and communally negotiated wagon road deeply rutted into the earth, the text highlights how the successful navigation of the frontier relied heavily on the collective transmission of vital topographical knowledge. Ultimately, the comprehensive atlas demonstrates that patiently mapping these vast spatial boundaries and collaboratively tracing the exact pioneer routes across the modern landscape are essential to understanding how the arduous overland crossing forged the foundational civic and agricultural expansion of the American West.

1 atlas (x, 292 pages) : illustrations, color maps ; 28 cm

In late December 1788 a worried Spanish official in Mexico City set down his fears about a new and aggressive northern neighbor. Viceroy Manuel Antonio Florez offered a gloomy prediction about the future of Spanish-United States relations in the West. He already knew about the steady march of frontiersmen toward St. Louis and now came troubling word of Robert Gray's ship Columbia on the Northwest coast. All this seemed to fit a pattern, a design for Yankee expansion. "We ought not to be surprised," warned the viceroy, "that the English colonies of America, now being an independent Republic, should carry out the design of finding a safe port on the Pacific and of attempting to sustain it by crossing the immense country of the continent above our possessions of Texas, New Mexico, and California." Canadian fur merchants and Russian bureaucrats also viewed the young republic as a potential rival in the struggle for western dominion. The viceroy's vision of the future proved startlingly accurate. Within the next two decades an American president would authorize a federally funded expedition to find just the sort of transcontinental route Florez imagined. Equally important, a New York entrepreneur would propose and put into motion an ambitious plan to make the Northwest an American political and commercial empire. John Astor's Pacific Fur Company, with Astoria as its central post on the Columbia River, was Florez's nightmare come true. Astoria had long represented either a daring overland adventure or simply a failed trading venture. The Astorians surely had their share of adventure. And the Pacific Fur Company never brought its founder the profits he expected. But all those involved in the extensive enterprise knew it meant more. Thomas Jefferson once described Astoria as the "germ of a great, free and independent empire," believing that the entire American claim to the lands west of the Rockies rested on "Astor's settlement at the mouth of the Columbia." And John Quincy Adams, the expansionist-minded secretary of state, labeled then entire Northwest as "the empire of Astoria." This book seeks to explore Astoria as part of a large and complex struggle for national sovereignty in the Northwest. The Astorians and their rivals were always engaged in more than trading and trapping. They were advance agents of empire. -- from Preface

xiv, 400 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm

Layne Sawyer and the Oregon State Archives’ Guide to Oregon provisional and territorial government records explores the foundational legal maturation and cooperative civic resilience required to establish the earliest formal governance in the Pacific Northwest. The narrative—anchored by meticulous archival documentation—illustrates how the severe geographic realities of this isolated frontier—separated from federal authority by thousands of miles of arduous overland trails and towering mountain ranges—required intense self-reliance and shared, structured adaptation from early American settlers. By detailing the gradual transition from precarious, loosely organized homesteads to the cooperative establishment of a provisional legal framework initiated at Champoeg, the guide highlights how regional stability relied entirely on community-driven agreements regarding land claims, resource management, and frontier justice. Ultimately, the archival catalog demonstrates that patiently forging these foundational legislative boundaries and collaboratively building a functioning territorial bureaucracy were essential steps in transforming a remote, vulnerable pioneer settlement into a cohesive, deeply rooted civic society poised for statehood.

125 pages : illustrations, maps ; 28 cm + e 1 computer disc (5 1/4 in.)

Andrew Price’s Port Blakely: the community Captain Renton built explores the intense industrial adaptation and the vibrant, diverse civic resilience forged within one of the Puget Sound's most powerful early lumber-mill company towns. The narrative illustrates how the profound environmental realities of this maritime topography—defined by the deep-water harbor of Bainbridge Island, the towering, dense expanses of coastal old-growth timber, and the vital marine highways of the Salish Sea—required immense physical labor and shared, structured adaptation from a globally diverse workforce. By detailing the gradual transition from an isolated, raw frontier logging camp to a meticulously organized, cooperative industrial community orchestrated by Captain William Renton, the text highlights how the massive scale of timber extraction relied heavily on the social cohesion of immigrant, indigenous, and pioneer laborers living in close-knit proximity. Ultimately, the account demonstrates that patiently navigating the dangerous, grueling realities of industrial milling and collaboratively building a shared, multicultural community infrastructure were essential steps in transforming a remote island extraction site into a dynamic, enduring cornerstone of Washington State’s maritime and economic heritage.

196 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Jack R. Evans’s Little history of North Bend-Snoqualmie, Washington explores the rigorous industrial and agricultural adaptation and the enduring community resilience forged within the upper reaches of the Snoqualmie Valley. The narrative illustrates how the demanding environmental realities of this Cascade foothill topography—defined by the towering presence of Mount Si, the massive hydrological barrier of Snoqualmie Falls, dense stands of ancient timber, and the constant threat of seasonal river flooding—required immense physical labor and shared, cooperative adaptation from early pioneers. By detailing the gradual transition from isolated frontier logging claims and sprawling hop farms to the cooperative establishment of connected, enduring civic centers driven by railway expansion and the monumental Snoqualmie Falls Lumber Company, the text highlights how the valley's economic survival relied heavily on a community-driven response to a formidable landscape. Ultimately, the account demonstrates that patiently harnessing the valley's immense natural resources and collaboratively navigating the geographic isolation of the Cascade convergence zone were essential steps in transforming a rugged wilderness outpost into a deeply rooted, cohesive civic and industrial cornerstone of western Washington.

61 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

Tim McNulty, Pat O'Hara, and Douglass A. North’s Washington's wild rivers: the unfinished work explores the dramatic environmental and historical corridors spanning the rugged Olympic Peninsula and the steep, forested valleys of the Cascade Range. Set against free-flowing waterways like the Skagit, Snoqualmie, and Hoh rivers, the photographic and literary narrative reveals how early logging camps, indigenous groups, and homesteaders relied on these vital aquatic highways to forge interconnected family networks in deeply isolated terrain. As these remote riverside outposts evolved into permanent valley communities, residents had to adapt their cooperative labor to both harness the resources and survive the seasonal flooding of the region's untamed watersheds. Ultimately, the book highlights how the enduring legacy of these deeply rooted river settlements is now intertwined with modern conservation efforts aimed at protecting the formidable geography that shaped their shared cultural history.

144 pages : color illustrations, maps ; 30 cm

William O. Douglas’s autobiographical Of men and mountains explores the physical and spiritual resilience forged within the rugged alpine landscapes of the Cascade Range and the agricultural foothills of the Yakima Valley. Set against the formidable backdrop of Mount Adams, the Goat Rocks, and the Tieton River basin, the narrative details how early outdoorsmen, sheepherders, indigenous groups, and pioneers cooperatively navigated this demanding high-altitude wilderness. By chronicling his own physical recovery through grueling backcountry expeditions alongside these scattered mountain inhabitants, Douglas illustrates how shared endurance in the unforgiving Pacific Northwest high country created a unique, deeply rooted frontier kinship. Ultimately, the book demonstrates that testing oneself against these towering volcanic peaks and isolated river valleys was essential not only for personal survival but for establishing a lasting community identity intimately tied to the region's dramatic geography.

xiv, 338 pages : map ; 23 cm

Josephine Emmons Vine’s Auburn—a look down Main Street chronicles the civic and commercial evolution of the fertile Green and White River valleys in southern King County, Washington. Centered around the strategic railway corridors and agricultural floodplains of early Auburn, the narrative details how foundational pioneer families and immigrant farmers cooperatively built a thriving agrarian hub out of the surrounding wilderness. By tracing the rapid structural and social development along the town's central commercial artery, the text reveals how scattered frontier homesteads transitioned into a highly interconnected civic center sustained by shared merchant networks and tight-knit kinship bonds. Ultimately, this local history documents how collaboratively navigating the seasonal rhythms of the river basin established the enduring community structures and deeply rooted family lineages that define the modern city.

xi, 124 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 28 cm

Stan Flewelling’s Farmlands: The Story of Thomas, a Small Agricultural Community in King County, Washington chronicles the agrarian development, immigrant labor history, and spatial transformation of an unincorporated farming hamlet situated in the fertile White River Valley between Kent and Auburn. The narrative traces how late nineteenth-century pioneer homesteads, commercial hop yards, and dairy parcels were systematically superimposed over the rich alluvial floodplains, seasonal fisheries, and prairie openings traditionally stewarded by Southern Lushootseed-speaking peoples, particularly the ancestral Muckleshoot and Duwamish communities. Flewelling details the demanding logistical mechanics of valley farming, illustrating how annual river inundations, subsequent river channelization, and the construction of the Northern Pacific Railroad and Puget Sound Electric Railway (Interurban) enabled immigrant cultivators—most notably Japanese Issei and Nisei families—to establish highly productive truck-farming and berry operations despite discriminatory Alien Land Laws. Ultimately, the work captures the socio-economic evolution of the Puget Sound lowlands, demonstrating how intensive immigrant agrarian labor and regional rail infrastructure permanently reshaped an Indigenous riparian ecology into a market breadbasket before its eventual conversion into modern suburban and industrial distribution corridors.

137 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

As we enter the 1990s, we mark the 100th anniversary of the decade which saw the establishment of a white settlement at Sechelt, British Columbia. The first of those settlers, Thomas John Cook, was the grandfather of Helen Dawe, who established for herself a reputation as the foremost chronicler of Sechelt history. Helen Dawe's Sechelt brings together her work on the founding and development of a community that has since become the hub of the Sunshine Coast. The book features a personal and anecdotal view of many of Secheit's founders, both white and Indian, and contains over 120 vintage photographs, taken from one of the most impressive private collections in the province. The result is much more than a local history. It is both a case study of how modem British Columbia was built, and a personal introduction to some of the people who were its builders.

150 pages : illustrations ; 29 cm

This book is a collection of the most compelling and beautiful photographs made of early Idaho people, places, and events in Idaho from 1863 through 1913. Virtually nothing had been published on Idaho’s pioneer photographers when Arthur A. Hart began his research a dozen years ago.

201 pages : illustrations ; 29 cm

Hank Corless’s The Weiser Indians: Shoshoni peacemakers examines the complex settlement patterns and diplomatic efforts of the Native bands inhabiting the Weiser, Payette, and Boise river valleys of southwestern Idaho. Set against the rugged topography of the surrounding mountain foothills, the narrative details how these indigenous kinship networks adapted their traditional seasonal migrations in response to the rapid influx of Euro-American homesteaders and miners. By tracing the leadership of tribal figures attempting to forge peaceful coexistence with encroaching frontier settlements, the text highlights the tribe's struggle to maintain their ancestral land base and social cohesion. Ultimately, the book documents the tragic fracturing of these deeply rooted indigenous families as federal policies forced their removal, forever altering the cultural and demographic landscape of the Idaho territory.

xix, 170 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

The mighty Columbia River cuts a deep gash through the Miocene basalts of the Columbia Plateau, coursing as well through the lives of the Indians who live along its banks. Known to these people as Nch’i-Wana (the Big River), it forms the spine of their land, the core of their habitat. At the turn of the century, the Sahaptin speakers of the mid-Columbia lived in an area between Celilo Falls and Priest Rapids in eastern Oregon and Washington. They were hunters and gatherers who survived by virtue of a detailed, encyclopedic knowledge of their environment. Eugene Hunn’s authoritative study focuses on Sahaptin ethnobiology and the role of the natural environment in the lives and beliefs of their descendants who live on or near the Yakima, Umatilla, and Warm Springs reservations.

xi, 378 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm

Harvey D. Rosenthal’s Their day in court: a history of the Indian Claims Commission explores the profound legal transition and enduring indigenous resilience required to navigate the bureaucratic reconciliation of territorial dispossession across the American West. The narrative illustrates how the shifting spatial realities of this vast landscape—defined by the historical erasure of ancestral boundaries, the arbitrary drawing of treaty lines, and the immense geographical footprint of federal expansion—required a complex, structured adaptation from Native American communities forced to translate their historical presence into modern judicial frameworks. By detailing the gradual transition from the physical, often violent territorial conflicts of the frontier to the cooperative mobilization of tribal leaders, historians, and anthropologists within a formalized adversarial court, the text highlights how securing recognition relied heavily on community-driven legal and cultural strategy. Ultimately, the account demonstrates that patiently navigating this arduous federal machinery and collaboratively fighting to codify historical spatial truths were essential steps in asserting enduring tribal sovereignty and reshaping the modern civic and legal boundaries of the United States.

xiii, 310 pages ; 23 cm.

The Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in southeast Oregon is internationally known to ornithologists and birders. Throughout the year, but especially during spring and autumn migrations, hundreds of thousands of birds can be seen on the refuge. Birds of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge provides the first exhaustive report on the 312 species recorded here over the last 110 years. For each species you'll learn: how common it is on the refuge; where it is likely to be found on the refuge; dates of its earliest, latest, and most frequent sightings on the refuge. C. D. Littlefield is a legendary figure to western birders and an internationally recognized expert on the birds of Malheur, particularly the Sandhill Crane.

294 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

"'Skookum' is the startlingly original narrative rendering of the experiences of a prominent westering family from 1843 to the present. The remarkable story of the Applegate family encompasses many of the predominant themes of the early American West: the overland crossing via the old Oregon Tail in 1843, the quirky restlessness of Applegate men who, after reaching the 'promised land, ' permitted their travel- worn families to rest only for a while, the effects of the intermit- tent gold rushes that continued to upset family lifre long after 1849, the troubled relations between the settler and the Indian ... Shannon Applegate is interested not only in what happemned to her family, but in what it meant to them. How did it feel to be a mother witnessing the death of her child on the way to Oregon, or to be a settler's son watching his Indian friends and old playmates rounded up in the dead of winter and marched off to the reserves? What did it do to the course of a young woman's life when she learned that her father has scratched her name from the family Bible? What sort of world was it where an old blue sugar bowl filled with gold dust could be unconcernedly set out in plain sight?"--Paper dustcover

460 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm

Humphrey Nelson, son of Tony B. Nelson of Denmark, was born in 1888 in Michigan. His family moved to Mason County, Washington in about 1889. He married Doris in 1915

iv, 88 pages, 1 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 27 cm.

Denis Marshall’s Sawdust Caesars: Early Logging and Sawmills of the Salmon Arm Area documents the timber extraction and milling industry that fundamentally shaped the settlement geography of Shuswap Lake and the Salmon River basin. The text details the establishment of major sawmilling enterprises—such as the Salmon River Lumber Company—alongside railway tie camps, lake-towing steamboat operations, and seasonal flumes. Marshall illustrates how intensive commercial timber harvesting was superimposed over the forested slopes and river drainages stewarded by the Secwépemc Nation, detailing the labor dynamics, environmental changes, and economic shifts that accompanied the extraction boom across the interior railway belt.

88 pages : illustrations, portraits ; 28 cm

Marjorie M. Selody’s Meeting of the Winds: A History of Falkland provides a comprehensive local history of the upper Salmon River valley, drawing its title from the traditional Secwépemc designation Slahaltkan. The volume documents the arrival of early Euro-American cattle ranchers, homesteaders, and loggers who established agrarian holdings along the river bottomlands and sweeping benches of Yankee Flats and Glenemma. Selody details the industrial growth of Falkland following the discovery of high-grade gypsum deposits in the early twentieth century and the construction of the Canadian National Railway branch line, which connected local quarries and timber mills to regional markets. Through extensive settler genealogies, land grant records, and oral interviews, the work captures the shared agricultural and commercial development linking Falkland to neighboring rural valleys in Silver Creek and Deep Creek.

256 pages : illustrations, maps, portraits ; 29 cm

Margaret A. Ormsby’s Coldstream: Nulli Secundus provides a comprehensive spatial and institutional chronicle of the Coldstream Valley and its surrounding municipality east of Vernon. Ormsby details how the foundational 1860s cattle pre-emptions of Charles Houghton and Forbes George Vernon were established across ancestral Syilx and Secwépemc territories, later evolving into the legendary Coldstream Ranch under the ownership of the Earl of Aberdeen. The narrative documents the transition of pastoral benchlands into commercial orchards and hop yards, analyzing the engineering of private irrigation ditches and flumes that preceded formal municipal incorporation in 1906. Ormsby highlights the social stratification of English gentry settlement throughout Lavington and Coldstream, recording how corporate agricultural capital and cooperative packing houses established the community as an economic cornerstone of the North Okanagan.

335 pages : illustrations, maps, portraits ; 24 cm