Catalog of British Columbiana and Pacific Northwest Americana

Published by mountaineer and author Kevin McLane, Squamish: The Shining Valley chronicles the dramatic geographic, cultural, and recreational evolution of British Columbia's famous fjord-side corridor. The book traces the region's transformation from an ancestral indigenous territory and a rugged 19th-century logging outpost into a world-renowned mecca for rock climbing, mountaineering, and outdoor recreation. Through striking photography and detailed historical accounts, the text captures the tenacity of the working-class communities who first carved railways and mills out of the imposing granite wilderness. A keen insight drawn from the work is how modern outdoor recreation alters the meaning of peripheral landscapes; the transition of Squamish from an extractive mill town into an elite adventure capital demonstrates that post-industrial mountain valleys are increasingly valued not for the timber they yield, but for the untamed verticality that allows modern seekers to escape urban containment.

96 pages : illustrations (some color), portraits ; 23 x 28 cm

The infamous murder and robbery of Lewiston merchant Lloyd Magruder and his companions during the 1860s gold rush is legendary in Idaho, Montana, and Washington. Ladd Hamilton constructs a compelling account of the destruction of Magruder’s pack train while traveling on the Southern Nez Perce Trail in the Bitterroot Mountains, and the subsequent quest by Magruder’s friend Hill Beachey to track his killers to San Francisco, escort them back to Lewiston, and then protect them from mob justice until they could be tried in court. By appraising written evidence and community lore, Hamilton has created an intriguing account based on fact and documentation. But he also blends in historical fiction when required to complement the narrative in those places where events are known to have occurred but the historical sources are sparse or virtually nonexistent. Underlying Hamilton’s work is his exact and familiar knowledge of early Idaho Territory, which in 1863 stretched hundreds of miles from Lewiston at the Snake-Clearwater confluence to the gold camps of Virginia City, Bannack, and beyond in what is now Montana. Hamilton’s imaginative characterizations of Magruder, Beachey, outlaw sheriff Henry Plummer, and large cast of other historical figures in Idaho, Montana, and California is based on his years of knowing the many and varied peoples of the West. Also underlying Hamilton's work is his insightful knowledge of the early gold camps in Idaho and Montana territories.

xviii, 253 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, portrait ; 23 cm

Perhaps one of the most recognizable buildings in Moscow, the United Methodist Church was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. This book explores the life and evolution of the church from its very beginning in 1876.

i, 97 pages : illustrations ; 28 cm

Marianne Love’s Pocket girdles and other confessions of a Northwest farm girl explores the intimate, everyday agrarian resilience and evolving community identity within the timbered valleys of the Idaho Panhandle during the mid-twentieth century. The narrative illustrates how the demanding environmental realities of this inland topography—defined by dense northern forests, rugged mountain terrain, and the rigorous seasonal rhythms of small-scale family farming—required immense physical labor and constant, shared adaptation from rural residents. By detailing personal recollections of the gradual transition from the isolated, grueling routines of traditional farm life to the cooperative engagement in mid-century civic and social institutions, the text highlights how shared daily experiences and rural community networks served as vital threads connecting the region. Ultimately, the memoir demonstrates that patiently fostering these everyday neighborly bonds and collaboratively adapting to the geographic and cultural isolation of the inland frontier were essential steps in cultivating a deeply rooted, vibrant rural heritage in the modern Pacific Northwest.

What's a pocket girdle? Find out in this hilarious collection of stories about rural childhood. "Marianne's writings catch the true and comic flavor of what it's like to grow up in rural Idaho". -- Patrick McManus

213 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

"The Haida of the Queen Charlotte Islands in British Columbia constructed some of the most magnificent houses and erected some of the most beautifully carved totem poles on the Northwest Coast. During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, images of the Haida's immense cedar houses and soaring totem poles were captured, first on glass plates and later on film, by photographers who travelled to then-remote villages such as Masset and Skidegate to marvel at, and record, what they saw there." "Haida Monumental Art ... includes a large number of these remarkable photographs, selected from a collection of over 10,000 original prints and photographic plates. They depict the Haida villages at the height of their glory and record their tragic deterioration only a few decades later. ... By combining archaeology and ethnohistory, George MacDonald presents an integrated framework for understanding the physical structure of a Haida village. He explains how the houses and poles are part of a fascinating web of myth, family history, and Haida cosmology, which provides a unique insight into Haida culture."--Back cover

218 pages : illustrations (some color), maps ; 31 cm

Karen Jones Lamb’s biographical and genealogical chronicle, Native American Wives of San Juan Settlers, recovers the foundational domestic, familial, and cross-cultural relationships that anchored mid-to-late nineteenth-century non-Indigenous settlement across the San Juan Archipelago. The work documents how early homestead claims, sheep stations, and lime-quarrying ventures across San Juan, Orcas, and Lopez islands were established directly within the ancestral marine territories, reef net locations, and seasonal harvesting sites of Northern Straits Salish peoples, including the Lummi, Samish, Songhees, and Saanich. Lamb details how settler survival on isolated island homesteads depended profoundly on the labor, ecological knowledge, and extensive kinship networks of Indigenous women, whose open-water canoe navigation and foraging skills maintained isolated households long before the advent of regular steamship service. Ultimately, these biographical accounts illustrate how cross-cultural marriages bridged the turbulent transition from the joint military occupation of the Pig War to formalized American civilian governance, highlighting the central role of Native women in sustaining the archipelago's early civic and maritime communities.

94 pages : illustrations ; 27 cm

Diana French’s The Road Runs West: A Century Along the Bella Coola Trail examines the historic transportation corridor linking the central interior plateau from the Fraser River across the Chilcotin to the Pacific tidal inlets at Bella Coola. French documents how nineteenth-century surveyor routes and settler wagon trails were superimposed onto ancient grease trails long traded and defended by the Nuxalk, Tsilhqot'in, and Dakelh nations. The narrative traces the establishment of early river ferries, stage stops, and farming communities along the Fraser River benches, detailing pioneer agriculture and civic development at Alexandria, Australian, Marguerite, Kersley, Macalister, and Soda Creek. Through detailed interviews, archival correspondence, and property records, the text chronicles how rural homesteaders and freight teamsters maintained vital supply lines across an unforgiving and isolated interior landscape.

276 pages : illustrations, maps, portraits ; 23 cm

Irene Stangoe’s Cariboo Trail Communities: From 70 Mile House to 100 Mile House and Williams Lake provides a localized historical survey tracing the evolution of civic settlements along the primary interior highway corridor. Stangoe documents how early stagecoach stops and cattle ranches expanded into organized rural municipalities, focusing on the development of Williams Lake from an agricultural crossroads and Pacific Great Eastern Railway stock shipping point into the primary commercial centre of the Cariboo-Chilcotin. The text chronicles prominent ranching families, early civic leaders, and the establishment of community institutions such as the Williams Lake Stampede. Stangoe also details the histories of neighboring settlements throughout the San Jose valley and surrounding plateaus, including 150 Mile House, Lac la Hache, 108 Mile Ranch, Glendale, and Enterprise.

128 pages : illustrations, maps, portraits ; 22 cm

Wonderful history of the Puget Sound Electric Railway, part of Stone & Webster's empire of west coast interurbans. With beautiful black and white photos on almost every page plus 8 pages in color. Includes 200 photos, maps and complete equipment roster. 144 pages.

144 pages : illustrations (some color), maps ; 29 cm

Since its first appearance in 1964 this delightful little book on the magic San Juan Islands has gone through several editions and numerous reprintings to become a real classic. Newly revised and up-to-date for today's generation of readers, this affectionate survey of the San Juans - replete with the legends and romance that make the Islands such a special place - is still the very best book of its kind. Magic Islands will add to the fun of every visitor and island-dweller. It contains descriptions of the San Juan as they are today, adds a bit of the Islands' history for flavor and hazards a peek at what the future may hold for this special place many call "paradise."

95 pages : illustrations, map ; 22 cm

As stated, "When the first group of pioneers explored the rugged Olympic mountain range during the harsh winter of 1889, they encountered both breathtaking beauty and cruel acts of nature. In subsesuent years, numeruous expeditions followed, and with the gripping tales of these trailblazers, collected here for the first time". This book includes never-before published historical photos and features detailed maps of explorers' routes.

175 pages : illustrations, maps ; 16 x 23 cm

Delivered by pioneer physician and politician Anson G. Henry, Rogue River War Speech captures a fiery public address given in Corvallis, Oregon, in December 1855 to rally support for military action against Indigenous tribes during the height of the Rogue River Wars. The speech plays upon frontier anxieties, detailing alleged atrocities and framing the violent subjugation of local native populations as an urgent, righteous defense of American settlers. Through contemporary rhetorical appeals, the text preserves the raw, unmasked political panic and racial animosity that drove territorial policy during the Pacific Northwest's Indian wars. A keen insight drawn from the work is how wartime rhetoric deliberately inverted the roles of aggressor and victim; by casting preemptive military campaigns of displacement as defensive humanitarian rescue missions, pro-war leaders successfully mobilized civilian volunteers and legitimized state-sanctioned violence under the banner of civic protection.

41 pages : illustrations ; 19 cm

Authored by Lucia W. Moore, Nina W. McCornack, and Gladys W. McCready, The Story of Eugene chronicles the founding and growth of Oregon’s third-largest city from its humble beginnings as a remote Willamette Valley settlement in the mid-19th century. The book draws on pioneer diaries, local records, and oral histories to trace the community's evolution from a muddy river crossing named after Eugene Skinner into a bustling agricultural and educational hub anchored by the University of Oregon. Through its detailed civic narrative, the text highlights the entrepreneurial drive and social institutions that transformed a fragile frontier outpost into a thriving urban center. A keen insight drawn from the work is how the intentional integration of higher education served as a vital urban survival strategy; by aggressively lobbying to secure the state university, early town leaders successfully insulated Eugene from the boom-and-bust cycles of purely resource-dependent timber and rail economies, cementing the city's long-term cultural and economic resilience.

277 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Authored by Leland G. Jackson and Trudy Howarth, An Early History of Spirit Lake & the Toutle River Valley chronicles the pioneer settlement, timber extraction, and rugged recreation that defined the remote wilderness surrounding Mount St. Helens before the 1980 cataclysmic eruption. The book draws on historical photographs, diaries, and local records to document the daring homesteaders, early cabin builders, and resilient loggers who carved out a living in the shadow of the active volcano. Through these preserved vignettes, the text captures the idyllic, rustic era of lakeside resorts and mountain trails that existed prior to the mountain's dramatic reconfiguration. A keen insight drawn from the work is how human history in volcanic zones is defined by a collective, deliberate amnesia regarding natural hazards; by building permanent communities and thriving tourist hubs directly beneath a dormant geological giant, early settlers demonstrated an irrepressible human tendency to mistake temporary mountain stability for a permanent guarantee.

v, 113 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm

Authored by Pacific Northwest writer Ann Briley, The Great North Road and Other Stories presents a evocative collection of regional fiction exploring the emotional landscapes and quiet struggles of individuals living along the rugged northern fringes of Washington State. The book weaves together poignant narratives of isolation, family dynamics, and community ties against the backdrop of dense evergreen forests, misty coastlines, and remote rural highways. Through sensitive character studies, the text captures the nuanced human experiences that unfold far away from bustling urban centers. A keen insight drawn from the work is how geographical isolation acts as a magnifying glass for personal conflict; by setting her character-driven dramas along quiet frontier routes where escape is physically difficult, Briley reveals how regional remoteness forces individuals to confront their deepest emotional truths rather than outrun them.

182 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

The cast of characters in Elizabeth Poehlman’s book, Darrington: Mining Town/Timber Town reads like a Wild West novel set in Paul Bunyan country. But this is no novel – Poehlman has written a memorable small-town history. The book starts in the late 1800s with the struggles of Chief Wawetkin and the Sauk-Suiattle Indians to deal with the onset of miners and settlers throughout their homelands deep in what would soon be renamed the North Cascades mountains in the new state of Washington. Subsequent chapters feature gold-fevered miners (and a revenge murder); a hotel owner who asked to be deputized for a half hour to deal with a knife-wielding drunk the sheriff couldn’t handle; the town doctor who kept a bear cub as a pet; the “sky pilot” minister who was too scared to preach in the rough railroad logging camps, opting to show slides instead; the Tarheels who followed the timber industry from North Carolina and brought their love of bluegrass and moonshine; the Depression-era housewife who distrusted banks and stashed her family’s savings around her waist in a hidden money belt – enough to almost pay off their land and house. Darrington, as Poehlman learned while living there, may be backwoods, but never boring.

176 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm

Postmaster General James A Farley's famous toast "to the forty-seven states and the soviet of Washington" introduces and sets the tone for this study of Washington State radicalism. The state's colorful reputation for radical movements was established in the 1920s and 1930s by free speech fights, strikes, strong labor organizations, and woman suffrage reforms. Charles LeWarne finds the roots of this radicalism in the communitarian experiments of the late nineteenth century. Through analyses of several of these experiments, LeWarne demonstrates that the influence of a coterie of liberals and radicals centered on Puget Sound in such communities as Home, Burley, Freeland, Equality, and Port Angeles was felt in the state long after the "utopias" they came to colonize had ceased to exist. Probably the most famous of the experiments was Home Colony on Joe's Bay near Tacoma. From a nucleus of three families, Home grew to over two hundred residents and lasted for more than twenty years. Its reputation for anarchism and flamboyance contributed to a jail sentence conviction for one editor of the Home newspaper for publishing an editorial called "The Nude and the Prudes." Readers interested in current social movements and lifestyles will find many enlightening parallels with recent communal attempts, particularly the rejection of traditional values and the belief in a perfectible world. Whatever the differences within individual colonies, the communitarian ideal has certain general characteristics that find their way into each of these attempts to form a perfect society. Historians will welcome this treatment of an important part of the social and cultural history of the area. The book contains a mine of previously scattered information on the subject. It is a delightful footnote to the history of the Puget Sound region.

XXIV, 325 Seiten Illustrationen, Karten 23 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

In the 1890s, the name of Rossland was on every investor’s lips. Known at one time as the new Johannesburg, this small town in southeastern British Columbia was the most important mining centre in the region. Apparently possessed of vast quantities of ore, the town’s mines seemed to promise wealth for all, and Rossland grew dramatically throughout the decade. By the early 1900s, it was the province’s fourth largest centre. During that time, hard rock mining changed from a loosely structured pioneer activity to a fully fledged industry that relied on sophisticated technology, a complex corporate infrastructure, and economies of scale. Despite these advances, Rossland’s success was shortlived. A bitter strike in 1901 signalled the beginning of the Golden City’s slow decline. Nearby Trail, originally a subsidiary of Rossland’s mining industry, soon surpassed its neighbour in size and importance.. Roaring Days explores the history of the mining industry in British Columbia. Mouat examines the many different aspects of mining, from work underground to corporate strategies, and he also brings to life the unique individuals who were a part of this history--the miners who toiled long hours in semi-darkness, the hardy citizens who built a bustling town out of the wilderness, and the wealthy mine owners and corporate entrepreneurs whose wealth exceeded all expectations. --From publisher's description

xviii, 236 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm

On April 1, 1908, Lola G. Baldwin, aged forty-eight, was sworn in "to perform Police Service" for the city of Portland, Oregon. She was the first woman hired by an American municipality to carry out regular enforcement duties. In telling Lola Baldwin's story, Gloria Myers examines the social and cultural impulses that gave rise to the policewoman idea. The Progressive Era redefined the role of women in society; Baldwin's career benefited from the Progressive belief that women could ameliorate urban evil as they had earlier civilized the household. The need for the urban policewoman arose out of concern for the moral and physical welfare of families, single working women, and children living in the cities. Supported by socially active women's organizations and informed by the ideals of "social hygiene," the first policewoman led a crusade against urban vice, deviance, and corruption in the Rose City. Preventive policing strategies developed by "municipal mothers" like Baldwin aid and influence policing policies to this day

viii, 232 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Port Orford, Oregon, in the 1930s and 40's. Here a curious, blabbermouth boy learns more at the bottom of a ditch than in kindergarten and finds real home in a booth at Red's Bar holding hands with Dorothy, who he is never supposed to talk to. With a little help from his friends, young Johnny learns about life and death and sex and Indians. And, with his help, we remember what it is to be a kid

viii, 304 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

In 1940, the Grays Harbor Post in Aberdeen, Washington, introduced its readers to "The Kitchen Critic," a new column chronicling life in nearby Cohassett Beach. Within a year the U.S. was at war, and columnist Kathy Hogan's weekly dispatches turned to soldiers, rationing, and the barbed wire that lined the sand dunes around her weathered cottage. 50 years later, Kathy Hogan's writings provide a window onto how one Pacific Northwest community responded to World War II. Cohassett Beach Chronicles, a collection of Hogan's columns from the war years, offers a remarkable social history of the war at home. The attack on Pearl Harbor brought U.S. troops to Cohassett Beach and to towns up and down the West Coast. With wit and perception, Hogan writes of civilians valiantly coping with this friendly occupation and wartime scarcity. Her neighbors — loggers, commercial fishermen, Finnish cranberry farmers — learn to live with blackouts, blimps, and a ban on beachcombing. Hogan's weekly descriptions of life on the home front capture America's wartime mood. Together, her columns document the war's tremendous impact at home, from the internment of Japanese Americans and the spread of government regulations to the changing role of women. They also reveal that in spite of the war effort life, in many ways, continued as it always had. There was still time to pick blackberries, gossip at the local tavern, and attend the occasional Friday night dance. As children, the editors spent summers in the Cohassett Beach cottages that still, in the late 1940s, bore scars of the Army's occupation.

xxx, 290 pages : illustrations, maps ; 27 cm

From their home bases in Idaho and neighboring areas of the Northwest, organizations such as the Order, the Aryan Nations Church, the Posse Comitatus, and the Golden Mean Society have drawn national attention and spread the gospel of a “constitutionally pure, Christian homeland.” For the reader who knows these groups only from a selection of inflammatory quotes and violent deeds, this compelling work presents the first disciplined exploration of the backgrounds and belief systems of the Christian patriot movement. Using information gathered from interviews and direct observation of patriot gatherings, Aho replaces the stereotype of solitary crazies from the fringes of society with more complex and disturbing realities.

x, 323 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

On a hot summer night in 1963, a teenager named Walt Crowley hopped off a bus in Seattle’s University District, and began his own personal journey through the 1960s. Four years later at age 19, he was installed as “rapidograph in residence” at the Helix, the region’s leading underground newspaper. His cartoons, cover art, and political essays helped define his generation’s experience during that tumultuous decade. Rites of Passage: A Memoir of the Sixties in Seattle weaves Crowley’s personal experience with the strands of international, intellectual, and political history that shaped the decade. As both a member and in-house critic of the New Left and counter-culture, the author offers a unique perspective in explaining why the experiments and excess of the period “made sense at the time.” Anti-war marches, human be-ins, rock festivals, psychedelic drugs, underground newspapers, free universities, light shows, inner-city riots, radical skirmishes, and hippie antics are chronicled with personal anecdotes, contemporary accounts, and historical insights. In the pages of Rites of Passage, the reader will encounter Black (and White) Panthers, the Seattle and Chicago Seven, Weathermen and Radical Women, and many more remarkable characters. As an engaging blend of history and personal reminiscence, Rites of Passage places the sixties in a context unavailable to its participants at the time. In addition to his text, Crowley has assembled a chronology of the decade beginning with its harbingers in the forties and fifties and continuing through its aftermath. This compilation covers political, social, and cultural events, and provides the most complete synopsis of sixties history now in print.

xiv, 351 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

52 pages of great newspaper articles written by Allen Miller, many vintage black and white photos covering logging, new buildings in town, schools and more.

iv, 52 pages : illustrations, portraits ; 28 cm