Catalog of British Columbiana and Pacific Northwest Americana

Published in 1888, Josiah Dwight Whitney’s Names and Places: Studies in Geographical and Topographical Nomenclature offers a pioneering scholarly examination of the origins, evolution, and cultural significance of place names across the expanding American landscape. Drawing on his extensive experience directing the California Geological Survey, Whitney analyzes how Indigenous appellations, Spanish colonial titles, and subsequent Anglo-American designations were layered, corrupted, or erased as the western frontier was systematically mapped. The text critiques the often arbitrary or politically motivated naming practices of early explorers, miners, and surveyors, advocating for a more rigorous and scientifically accurate approach to standardizing geographic markers. A keen insight drawn from the text is how Whitney’s linguistic study inadvertently reveals the imperial power dynamics inherent in cartography; by documenting the systematic replacement or anglicization of Indigenous toponyms, the book illustrates how the bureaucratic act of naming functioned as a definitive tool of cultural conquest, literally overwriting native geographies to assert and legitimize white territorial control.

239 pages 18 cm

Namely Vancouver traces the fascinating origins and history of Greater Vancouver's place names--its streets, neighbourhoods, waterways, mountains, boroughs, and buildings, among others, in an illustrated historical glossary that takes you behind the ubiquitous signs and symbols, and provides a unique vantage point on the city. For instance, Commercial Drive was originally named Park Drive, as it abutted Clark Park in East Vancouver. As part of the route of the Vancouver-New Westminster interurban railway, Park Drive attracted a lot of new businesses; so much so, that in 1912 it was renamed Commercial Drive. There seems to be no truth to the rumour that Gassy Jack Deighton was so named for his frequent passing of wind. Rather, this instrumental figure in Vancouver's early history--the original site of his pub still forms the division between east and west streets in the city--was named for his windbag tendencies, and the legacy of this saloon keeper lives on in the name of historic Gastown. While many of Vancouver's early surveyors, mayors, and even saloon keepers had the honour of having streets or neighbourhoods named after them, John Morton had a slightly more dubious distinction. As one of the "three greenhorns," Morton went down in history as one of Vancouver's earliest settlers. In return, one of Vancouver's shortest streets is named after him. Lulu Island is named after Lulu Sweet, an actress with a travelling theatre company. Colonel Moody (of Port Moody fame) was smitten with Miss Lulu, and named the island, now known as Richmond, after her. An unorthodox and revealing guide, Namely Vancouver is an ideal book for tourists and Vancouverites alike. Includes numerous historical and contemporary B&W photographs.

299 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

12 unnumbered pages illustrations 23 cm

"In 1970, Margaret Grundstein abandoned her graduate degree at Yale and followed her husband, an Indonesian prince and community activist, to a commune in the backwoods of Oregon. Together with ten friends and an ever-changing mix of strangers, they began to build their vision of utopia. Naked in the Woods chronicles Grundstein's shift from reluctant hippie to committed utopian--sacrificing phones, electricity, and running water to live on 160 acres of remote forest with nothing but a drafty cabin and each other. Grundstein, (whose husband left, seduced by "freer love") faced tough choices. Could she make it as a single woman in man's country? Did she still want to? How committed was she to her new life? Although she reveled in the shared transcendence of communal life deep in the natural world, disillusionment slowly eroded the dream. Brotherhood frayed when food became scarce. Rifts formed over land ownership. Dogma and reality clashed. Many people, baby boomers and millennials alike, have romantic notions about the 1960s and 70s. Grundstein's vivid account offers an unflinching, authentic portrait of this iconic and often misreported time in American history. Accompanied by a collection of distinctive photographs she took at the time, Naked in the Woods draws readers into a period of convulsive social change and raises timeless questions: how far must we venture to find the meaning we seek, and is it ever far out enough to escape our ingrained human nature?"-- Provided by publisher

212 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Thanks in large part to the abundant salmon runs the Chinook–speakers residing along the lower Columbia River were among the wealthiest in North America. Master fisherman and expert canoeists it was not uncommon for a single canoe and crew to net two tons of succulent Chinook salmon on a single outgoing tide. A thickset people with artificially flattened heads, anarchistic politics, and a highly stratified society, they spoke a language unconnected to any known language on earth. Yet despite all their wealth and accomplishments they were all but completely wiped out in a few short decades after whites first landed on their shores. Rubin conveys information about the people's daily life, spiritual beliefs, mythologies, and how the introduction of white settlers into the region forever changed their culture.

431 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Published in 1920 by anthropologist Leo Joachim Frachtenberg, Myths of the Alsea Indians of Northwestern Oregon is a vital ethnographic compilation preserving the oral traditions and linguistic structures of the heavily displaced Alsea people. Working under the auspices of the Bureau of American Ethnology during the frantic era of "salvage anthropology," Frachtenberg meticulously transcribed cosmologies, animal tales, and cultural taboos directly from some of the tribe's very last fluent speakers. The resulting volume serves as both a dense linguistic archive and a haunting cultural repository of a complex coastal civilization that had been systematically decimated by disease and forced relocation to the Siletz Reservation. A keen insight drawn from the work is how early twentieth-century ethnography often functioned as a bureaucratic autopsy of the very cultures the federal government was actively extinguishing; by transforming the sacred, living oral traditions of the Alsea into sterile, standardized data for state archives, anthropologists inadvertently completed a final act of colonial extraction, mining Indigenous intellectual wealth only after the physical communities had been thoroughly marginalized.

pages 64-75

Katharine Berry Judson’s 1910 compilation, Myths and legends of the Pacific Northwest, serves as an early twentieth-century effort to transcribe and organize the vital oral traditions of the region’s diverse indigenous nations for a broader Euro-American audience. Rather than viewing these accounts as mere folklore, the text reveals how the narratives of the Chinook, Nez Perce, Klamath, and Coast Salish peoples function as deep geographic records that explain the complex volcanic, glacial, and riverine formation of the regional landscape. These oral histories highlight the profound, interdependent alliances between indigenous communities and their surrounding ecosystems, illustrating a worldview where prominent peaks, waterways, and animal life were intimately tied to human survival and family networks. While the collection is inevitably mediated through the lens of a pioneer-era compiler, it emphatically demonstrates that the rugged terrain early settlers sought to map and industrialize was already richly defined by centuries of indigenous cultural geography and environmental knowledge.

xvi, 19-144 p., [25] leaves of plates : ill. ; 23 cm.

Arthur C. Ballard’s 1929 ethnographic collection, Mythology of southern Puget Sound, serves as an indispensable oral-geographic ledger of the Southern Coast Salish peoples, particularly the Puyallup, Nisqually, Snoqualmie, and Duwamish communities. Transcribed directly from regional culture-bearers—including respected elders such as Snuqualmie Charlie—the narratives function far beyond folklore, recording precise ecological, hydrological, and topographic knowledge of the southern Sound’s river basins, oak prairies, and Cascade foothill corridors. These transformer stories and place-based oral traditions systematically mapped the vital arteries of the Green, White, Puyallup, and Cedar river systems, delineating ancient salmon weirs, seasonal harvesting grounds, and portage routes that sustained dense intertribal trade and family alliances. For historians of Pacific Northwest settlement, Ballard’s compilation provides a vital baseline documenting an intricately managed indigenous domain just before late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century industrialization radically transformed the landscape—diverting rivers, logging alluvial bottomlands, and superimposing railroads, agricultural dikes, and factory towns directly over ancestral Salish villages and maritime crossroads.

1 preliminary leaf, pages 33-150 ; 26 cm

Few places could hope to rival the rich history of Washington's San Juan Island. From the famed Pig War to the secretive "kingdom" at Roche Harbor, the island has played host to countless remarkable stories. Like any other historical place, however, there are some tales that the textbooks tend to omit; tales like the terrifying "Cry Baby House," or the subterranean sasquatch said to stalk the woods around Cady Mountain. With the aid of articles, first-hand accounts, and period photographs, Mysterious San Juan Island attempts to document this strange side of San Juan history-and to ensure that the island's campfire stories remain suitably spooky for years to come.

My, how time flies captures the intimate, grassroots transformation of Whatcom County, tracing its evolution from a rugged, heavily timbered frontier into a consolidated maritime and industrial center along Washington’s northernmost seaboard. Hunsby details how the region's formidable geography—characterized by the dense old-growth forests of the Nooksack River valley, the deepwater anchorages of Bellingham Bay, and the towering, glaciated foothills of Mount Baker—strictly dictated early pioneer lifeways and economic expansion. By chronicling firsthand experiences in isolated logging camps and the arduous engineering efforts required to carve the Mount Baker Highway through impenetrable alpine terrain, the narrative highlights the immense physical labor required to navigate and extract resources from this unforgiving landscape. Furthermore, the compilation of these historical accounts illustrates how the isolated coastal and mountainous topography of Fairhaven and Bellingham fostered a fiercely independent, self-reliant community deeply tied to its natural surroundings. Ultimately, this collection serves as a deeply personal spatial history, demonstrating how the dramatic environmental extremes of the Pacific Northwest’s extreme northwestern corner inherently shaped the enduring pioneer character and physical footprint of Whatcom County.

126 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

"Parents began sending their kids off to summer camp more than a century ago, a tradition that continues strong in the face of transformative changes to society, and childhood. The history of summer camping, with its roots in Boy Scouts and other Victorian-era social movements, is beginning to be written. But until now, less has been said about the experiences of the generations of young men and women whose outlook has been shaped by their summer vacations. In My Paddle's Keen and Bright, Rika Ruebsaat allows the camp veterans of all ages and backgrounds to reflect on their experiences, and the indelible lifelong impressions these have left on them. Every facet of camp experience is described, from the bus or boat that takes you away from the familiars into a new world of strangers, to the bittersweet partings and memories lasting a lifetime. Campers describe the terror, and exhilaration, of learning about new people and different lives outside of their own families; the food, strange rituals, and exciting new adventures involving boats, or horses, or hikes, chores, even practical jokes. Here are the vivid recollections of passionate friendships made in the course of a few days; of crushes on counsellors; the campfires and songs; the first fumbling sexual explorations; the skinned knees and overcome fears; the lessons learned and carried for the rest of their lives. Grown-ups from all social classes and outloooks established summer camps. The storytellers reflect on their experiences in the more traditional summer camps organized by Boy Scouts or Girl Guides; the camps organized by religious organizations or around political viewpoints. The differences - and, more often, the continuities - provide a fascinating and unique perspective into a world that continues to leave an indelible mark on society, even as the world of summer camp slips into history."-- Provided by publisher

xii, 287 pages ; 22 cm

"My Name is LaMoosh is the life story of Warm Springs Tribal Elder Linda Meanus. She grew up with her grandma Flora Thompson and grandpa Chief Tommy Thompson near Celilo Falls, a mighty fishery on the Columbia that was flooded in 1957 by the construction of The Dalles Dam. Linda persevered through this historic trauma and life's challenges to teach young people about the Indigenous ways of the Columbia River. Intended for early readers to learn more about Native American history through a first-hand account, the book is also a reminder that Indigenous people continue to maintain a cultural connection to the land and river that gave them their identity. My Name is LaMoosh includes fact boxes that provide historical, cultural, and environmental context for Linda's personal story. Hundreds of books exist about Lewis and Clark and their journey of "discovery." This book balances our understanding of American history with the long-neglected voices of Indigenous people. Linda's story is not just about historic trauma but also about resilience, perseverance, and reciprocity."-- Provided by publisher

95 pages : illustrations, maps, portraits ; 26 cm

A collection of memories of growing up and beyond in Marshfield, Oregon during the midtwentieth century.

158 pages : illustrations, facsimiles, portraits ; 28 cm

My Life, by Louis Kenoyer was dictated in Tualatin Northern Kalapuya by Louis Kenoyer, the last known speaker of that language. A rare, first-person narrative by a Native American describing life on an Oregon reservation, Kenoyer's account tells the story of his childhood on the late-nineteenth century Grand Ronde Reservation. It includes compelling descriptions of daily life in the reservation community, capturing the intermingling of new Euro-American ways with persisting indigenous beliefs and practices. The first quarter of the narrative was dictated to Jaime de Angulo and L. S. Freeland in 1928, the remainder to Melville Jacobs in 1936. Louis Kenoyer died in 1937, before Jacobs could complete a translation with him. Jacobs subsequently prepared a transcript from the translated portions of the text, but the last quarter of the complete narrative remained untranslated until now. Henry Zenk and Jedd Schrock drew on the previously translated portions of the narrative, as well as on available supporting linguistic, ethnographic, and historical documentation, to complete the work for this volume. The result is a complete bilingual English-Tualatin text, accompanied by extensive notes and commentary providing historical and ethnographic context. Louis Kenoyer (baχawádas) was born in 1868 at Grand Ronde Reservation, Oregon. He died in 1937 at Yakama Reservation, Washington.

ix, 326 pages : illustrations, maps ; 26 cm

My Ain folk: Denman Island 1875-1975 chronicles the grueling agricultural transformation and isolated pioneer settlement across the heavily timbered, sea-swept terrain of the Northern Gulf Islands. Isbister details how the region's formidable physical barriers—specifically the treacherous tidal currents of the Strait of Georgia, the deep aquatic trench of Baynes Sound permanently severing the island from the Vancouver Island mainland, and the dense, impenetrable coastal rainforests—strictly dictated the margins of early human survival and economic expansion. By mapping the immense physical labor required to clear towering old-growth timber to carve out precarious subsistence farms and to establish vital deepwater landings along the rocky, indented shorelines, the narrative highlights the monumental effort necessary to anchor a permanent community in this demanding maritime environment. The absolute geographic isolation initially forced these remote island homesteaders into a strict reliance on the deepwater marine highway, completely anchoring their commercial, social, and agricultural lifelines to unpredictable maritime weather patterns and the precarious arrival of vital coastal steamships. Ultimately, this local historical record serves as a deeply localized spatial history, demonstrating how the severe aquatic isolation and rugged, forested topography of this Pacific Northwest frontier fundamentally shaped the fiercely resilient, tightly knit, and strictly maritime-dependent character of the Denman Island settlement.

206 pages : illustrations, maps, portraits ; 23 cm

Valuable and complete information is provided for 354 species of non-gilled mushrooms in the Northwest, including 119 species of boletes, 119 coral fungi, 12 chanterelles, 121 polypores, and 50 spine fungi. Field and technical keys for the determination of species, along with descriptions and black & white photographs.

This volume is the culmination of over two decades of study of Pacific Northwest mushrooms. You will find this guide an essential for your mushroom collection kit. Mushroom enthusiasts are advised on when and where to collect, how to distinguish from toadstools and on the development and parts of the mushroom. Valuable and complete information is provided for 354 species of non-gilled mushrooms in the Northwest, including 119 species of boletes, 119 coral fungi, 12 chanterelles, 121 polypores, and 50 spine fungi. Field and technical keys for the determination of species, along with descriptions and black & white photographs. --Publisher

volumes <1-2> : illustrations (some color) ; 21 cm.

"Part history, part true crime, Murders on the Skeena: True Crime in the Old Canadian West, 1884-1914 contains the true accounts of murders, crimes, and scandals--some of which remain unsolved to this day--in small-town northern British Columbia. With a focus on the victims as much as the cases themselves, award-winning author Geoff Mynett relates untold stories of BC's deadly history while providing both the natural and social history of the region. Hazelton, situated where the Bulkley River joins the Skeena River, was one of the most important sites in the interior of northern BC from 1870-1913. The gold rush, the arrival of the telegraph, and the ability for steam boats to journey upriver increased outside interest in the region. As new modes of transport were built, more non-Indigenous people arrived, and as colonial law and governance increased, so did tensions between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. One such case was that of the murder of Amos "Charley" Youmans in 1884--the escalation of a clash between the laws and customs of the Gitxsan and those of the encroaching traders and settlers. Mynett also recounts the stories of the so-called Skeena River Uprising of 1888, a bank robbery shoot-out, and a deadly dispute between two prospectors. Peeling back historical, social, political, and geographical layers, Murders on the Skeena draws almost exclusively from documents from the time to reveal the fascinating secrets and surprising consequences of these captivating true crime tales.-- Provided by publisher

255 pages : illustrations, map ; 23 cm

"From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Prairie Fires comes a terrifying true-crime history of serial killers in the Pacific Northwest and beyond-a gripping investigation of how a new strain of psychopath emerged out of a toxic landscape of deadly industrial violence Caroline Fraser grew up in the shadow of Ted Bundy, the most notorious serial murderer of women in American history, surrounded by his hunting grounds and mountain body dumps, in the brooding landscape of the Pacific Northwest. But in the 1970s and '80s, Bundy was just one perpetrator amid an uncanny explosion of serial rape and murder across the region. Why so many? Why so weirdly and nightmarishly gruesome? Why the senseless rise and then sudden fall of an epidemic of serial killing? As Murderland indelibly maps the lives and careers of Bundy and his infamous peers in mayhem-the Green River Killer, the I-5 Killer, the Night Stalker, the Hillside Strangler, even Charles Manson-Fraser's Northwestern death trip begins to uncover a deeper mystery and an overlapping pattern of environmental destruction. At ground zero in Ted Bundy's Tacoma stood one of the most poisonous lead, copper, and arsenic smelters in the world, but it was hardly unique in the West. As Fraser's investigation inexorably proceeds, evidence mounts that the plumes of these smelters not only sickened and blighted millions of lives but also warped young minds, including some who grew up to become serial killers. A propulsive nonfiction thriller, Murderland transcends true-crime voyeurism and noir mythology, taking readers on a profound quest into the dark heart of the real American berserk"-- Provided by publisher

466 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), maps (some color) ; 25 cm

The Victorians who settled the Oregon Territory were adept at keeping immoral or bad behavior a secret. Goeres-Gardner uncovers the secret past of abuse, neglect, and double standards that existed for women criminals. Discover what drove proper Victorian women to murder. You ll learn about women s trials and their all-male jurors and the horrid conditions they faced in all-male prisons.

xix, 199 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

"The New York Times bestselling author of Escape From Camp 14 returns with the riveting and revealing story of one of the most persistent "alternative facts" in American history: the story of a missionary, a tribe, a massacre, and a myth that shaped the American West In 1836, two missionaries and their wives were among the first Americans to cross the Rockies by covered wagon on what would become the Oregon Trail. Dr. Marcus Whitman and Reverend Henry Spalding were headed to present-day Washington state and Idaho, where they aimed to convert members of the Cayuse and Nez Perce tribes. Both would fail spectacularly as missionaries. But Spalding would succeed as a propagandist, inventing a story that recast his friend as a hero, and helped to fuel the massive westward migration that would eventually lead to the devastation of those they had purportedly set out to save. As Spalding told it, after uncovering a British and Catholic plot to steal the Oregon Territory from the United States, Whitman undertook a heroic solo ride across the country to alert the President. In fact, he had traveled to Washington to save his own job. Soon after his return, Whitman, his wife, and eleven others were massacred by a group of Cayuse. Though they had ample reason--Whitman supported the explosion of white migration that was encroaching on their territory, and seemed to blame for a deadly measles outbreak--the Cayuse were portrayed as murderous savages. Five were executed. This fascinating, impeccably researched narrative traces the ripple effect of these events across the century that followed. While the Cayuse eventually lost the vast majority of their territory, thanks to the efforts of Spalding and others who turned the story to their own purposes, Whitman was celebrated well into the middle of the 20th century for having "saved Oregon." Accounts of his heroic exploits appeared in congressional documents, The New York Times, and Life magazine, and became a central founding myth of the Pacific Northwest. Exposing the hucksterism and self-interest at the root of American myth-making, Murder at the Mission reminds us of the cost of American expansion, and of the problems that can arise when history is told only by the victors"-- Provided by publisher

xxxi, 432 pages : illustrations, map ; 24 cm

Authored by Wallace Louis Exum, Murder at Hogans Corner, Washington: An American Destiny investigates a dark, sensationalized 1930s homicide that sent shockwaves through a rural Grays Harbor County crossroads community. The book reconstructs the chilling details of the crime, the subsequent manhunt, and the local judicial proceedings that riveted the Pacific Northwest during the height of the Great Depression. Through meticulous archival research, the author uses the lens of a single sensational murder to expose the raw underbelly of an isolated frontier region wrestling with sudden economic despair. A keen insight drawn from the work is how true-crime narratives function as mirrors for societal anxiety; by probing a localized act of violence against the backdrop of economic collapse, the text reveals that the true horror of the era was not merely an isolated murder, but the pervasive social unraveling of a forgotten rural populace pushed to the brink by structural poverty.

xiii, 227 pages : portrait ; 21 cm

Cemetery stories : where'd Dr. McIteeny get to and the Sad tale of Sergeant Peter Vogel; Ezekiel Litell's axe to grind; Grove Street gutting; H.B. Lane orders a drink, is served a shot; The wheels of justice begin to turn; Simeon Walters's short drop; A bad year in the life of T. Burmester, Esquire; Never let your guard down at Goodwin's mill

127 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Covering people and events from 1854 to the present day, this definitive reference on the history, politics, and policy of Multnomah County provides compelling details about public works undertakings and political scandals. Oregon’s tiniest county geographically quickly grew to be the state’s most populous. Through nearly sixteen decades, Multnomah County’s history seldom has been calm and peaceful. From hangings that turned into grim public spectacles in the nineteenth century to a glaring failure to deal with urban growth in the middle of the twentieth, the county has survived frequent home rule charter changes and several attempts to revamp its structure or merge with Portland’s better-known municipal government. Highlighted episodes include the construction of the iconic Columbia River Highway between 1914 and 1918, the tragic flooding of Vanport City in 1948, the employee strike of 1980, the library scandal of 1989- 1990, and the same-sex marriage license debacle of 2004. Historian Jewel Lansing and journalist Fred Leeson make effective use of archival sources, oral histories, newspaper articles, and personal interviews. History buffs and informed Portland citizens will be particularly engaged by the regional trivia and narrative details.

x, 326 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm

"The unusual and moving tale of Muggins, a famed fundraising dog who became a mascot of the Canadian Red Cross during the First World War. Born in 1913 in the home of a millionaire philanthropist, Muggins was a purebred Spitz, a sharp-eared, sharp-nosed, fluffy-tailed sort of dog most often seen in the lap of a lady of leisure. But Muggins defied the odds, rising to unlikely fame during the First World War, when he became Victoria, BC's most diminutive fundraiser. He was taught to wander through downtown during the war with two change donation boxes tied to his back, and ultimately collected the equivalent of $400,000 for charities and causes including the Red Cross, the Blue Cross, food for poor children and prisoners of war, victims of Jewish pogroms, to name a few. During his short life, Muggins visited ferries and freight liners stopping in Victoria. He appeared in photos with the Prince of Wales and with famous Canadian general Sir Arthur Currie, among other celebrated admirers. He was also a favourite of the rank and file, helping cheer up wounded soldiers at Esquimalt Military Hospital. Muggins was made an honourary first lieutenant by the United States military for his service raising funds in Seattle. And he was so loved by departing soldiers he was more than once nearly taken along to the theatre of war. Based on valuable documents, memorabilia, newspaper and newsreel accounts of Muggins's brief but brilliant career, this book tackles the difficult question of human use of animals in war, at home and on the battlefield. It explores how crucial animals, specifically dogs, have been to wounded veterans recovering from physical and emotional damage--both in Muggins's lifetime and now."-- Provided by publisher

xv, 199 pages, 24 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, portraits ; 22 cm