Catalog of British Columbiana and Pacific Northwest Americana

On May 15, 1859, an American settler on San Juan Island shot a pig belonging to the Hudsons Bay Company. This seemingly insignificant act was the spark that almost set aflame the strangest of many confrontations between Britain and the United States on the northwest coast of North America. On one side of the border dispute over the strategically located San Juan Islands was Governor James Douglas, determined to protect the interests of the Hudsons Bay Company and prove the military superiority of Britain. On the other side was General William Selby Harney, spoiling for a fight and believing in Americas manifest destiny to rule the continent. In this lively account of the conflict that became known as the Pig War, Rosemary Neering traces the events that led to the standoff in the San Juans and brings to life the memorable characters who played leading roles in the drama. The book is an excellent travel companion to anyone visiting the San Juans and the original American and British camps that are open to the public.

142 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 22 cm.

New Land North of the Columbia features an 1860 letter protesting the escape of an Olympia slave to Victoria on the Puget Sound Underground Railroad. There's also territorial Governor Pickering's telegram to Abraham Lincoln sent on the brand-new telegraph--and Lincoln's hand-signed response. Other ephemera include posters and letters that support and condemn women's right to vote, prohibition of the sale of alcohol, and aid to the unemployed during the Great Depression. Here are documents about the massive, secret Hanford Engineering Works that was Washington's Manhattan Project. The book includes an ad for the first Lame Fest concert featuring Mudhoney and Nirvana, the original box that contained Windows 95, and a poster calling all protesters to the 1999 WTO conference. Historian Lorraine McConaghy has traversed the state and sifted through the files of three dozen archives to cull the 400 fascinating documents that bring to life Washington's last 150 years.

vi, 153 pages : illustrations (some color), maps (some color) ; 25 x 29 cm

A compact and comprehensive history of Portland from first European contact to the twenty-first century, Portland in Three Centuries introduces the women and men who have shaped Oregon’s largest city. The expected politicians and business leaders appear, but Carl Abbott also highlights workers and immigrants, union members and dissenters, women at work and in the public realm, artists and activists, and other movers and shakers. Incorporating social history and contemporary scholarship in his narrative, Abbott examines current metropolitan character and issues, giving close attention to historical background. He explores the context of opportunities and problems that have helped to shape the rich mosaic that is Portland. This revised and updated second edition includes greater attention to the Indigenous peoples of the Portland region, Portland’s communities of color, and the challenges of recent years that have thrust Portland into the national spotlight. A highly readable character study of a city, and enhanced by more than sixty historic and contemporary images, Portland in Three Centuries will appeal to readers interested in Portland, in Oregon, and in Pacific Northwest history.

192 pages : illustrations, maps ; 26 cm

This textn tells the story of Oregon's most prominent Chicano activist, which also illustrates the formation of a significant Mexican-American community in the state between the 1960s and 1980's, and the ensuing rise of Oregon's Chicano movement

x, 326 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Brings together archaeologists, biologists, and other scientists to consider how archaeology can inform the conservation and management of pinnipeds and other marine mammals along the Pacific Coast.

viii, 320 pages : illustrations, maps ; 27 cm

Published in 2011 by Steven M. Egesdal, M. Terry Thompson, and Mandy N. Jimmie, Nl̳ekèpmxcín: Thompson River Salish Speech is a comprehensive linguistic and cultural collection documenting the traditional language of the Nlaka'pamux people of British Columbia. The massive volume compiles dozens of authentic narratives, traditional orations, prayers, and conversations gathered from fluent speakers, complete with detailed interlinear morphological glosses and English translations. By bridging raw oral recordings with rigorous academic analysis, the text preserves complex grammatical structures and cultural knowledge directly from the source. A keen insight drawn from the work is how meticulous documentation of this caliber transcends traditional academic linguistics; by capturing spoken oral history in the native tongue, the book functions as a vital, community-rooted lifeline for language revitalization against the pressures of generational attrition

xiv, 596 pages : illustrations, map ; 29 cm.

Seattle was a very different city in 1960 than it is today. There were no black bus drivers, sales clerks, or bank tellers. Black children rarely attended the same schools as white children. And few black people lived outside of the Central District. In 1960, Seattle was effectively a segregated town. Energized by the national civil rights movement, an interracial group of Seattle residents joined together to form the Seattle chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Operational from 1961 through 1968, CORE had a brief but powerful effect on Seattle. The chapter began by challenging one of the more blatant forms of discrimination in the city, local supermarkets. Located within the black community and dependent on black customers, these supermarkets refused to hire black employees. CORE took the supermarkets to task by organizing hundreds of volunteers into shifts of continuous picketers until stores desegregated their staffs. From this initial effort CORE, in partnership with the NAACP and other groups, launched campaigns to increase employment and housing opportunities for black Seattleites, and to address racial inequalities in Seattle public schools. The members of Seattle CORE were committed to transforming Seattle into a more integrated and just society. Seattle was one of more than one hundred cities to support an active CORE chapter. Seattle in Black and White tells the local, Seattle story about this national movement. Authored by four active members of Seattle CORE, this book not only recounts the actions of Seattle CORE but, through their memories, also captures the emotion and intensity of this pivotal and highly charged time in America’s history.

xiii, 279 pages : illustrations, map ; 24 cm.

In April 1956, Portland Oregonian investigative reporters Wallace Turner and William Lambert exposed organized crime rackets and rampant corruption within Portland’s law enforcement institutions. The biggest scandal involved Teamsters officials and the city’s lucrative prostitution, gambling, and bootlegging operations. Turner and Lambert blew the cover on the Teamsters’ scheme to take over alcohol sales and distribution and profit from these fringe enterprises. The Rose City was seething with vice and intrigue. The exposé and other reports of racketeering from around the country incited a national investigation into crime networks and union officials headed by the McClellan Committee, or officially, the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field. The commission discovered evidence in Portland that helped prove Teamsters president Dave Beck’s embezzlement of union funds and union vice president Jimmy Hoffa’s connection to the mob. Dark Rose reveals the fascinating and sordid details of an important period in the history of what by the end of the century had become a great American city. It is a story of Portland’s repeated and often failed efforts to flush out organized crime and municipal corruption - a familiar story for many mid-twentieth-century American cities that were attempting to clean up their police departments and municipal governments. Dark Rose also helps explain the heritage of Portland’s reform politics and the creation of what is today one of the country’s most progressive cities.

xiii, 202 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

To explore the sweep of human history at Fort Vancouver is to grasp some of the essentials of the North American experience. The fort has been part of the major historical trends of the Pacific Northwest for over 150 years, from the effects of colonialism native peoples to the role of the U.S. Army. Native Americans, traders, homesteaders, and soldiers lived and worked at the fort, their lives interwoven and their stories imbedded in the objects they left behind. Exploring Fort Vancouver uses some of the most intriguing objects from the fort's extensive archaeological and archival collections to tell the history of technology, material culture, globalization, health and diet, and the National Park Service at this significant place.

xii, 116 pages : illustrations (some color), color maps ; 26 cm

In the three decades following World War II, a group of architects centered in the Puget Sound region were designing buildings of extraordinary quality, whose most evident commonality was the use of wood in profusion, as exposed, meticulously detailed structure and as interior and exterior surface. Gene Zema, a 1950 graduate of the University of Washington and a student of the legendary Lionel Pries, was one of this group. In a career that spanned twenty years, Zema designed forty-six houses, seven clinics, two architectural offices, a nursery, and a golf clubhouse, and he participated in the design of two University buildings. He built several buildings with his own hands, developing a consummate sense of appropriate design in wood. The luxuriantly crafted details and uniquely dramatic spatial compositions of his work place it at the forefront of that remarkable movement. Zema was also a distinguished collector and retailer of Native American and Japanese antiquities. In 1983, relying on the sale of antiquities for income and limiting his architectural practice, he and his wife, Jane, bought a 70-acre meadow on Whidbey Island. On their property Zema built a workshop, a windmill and pump house, a chicken house, a home, a peacock house, and a kiln, all of which are as remarkable as his earlier masterpieces. Gene Zema is an iconic figure among those who know his work, but the region to which his work is intimately bound is far from the centers of architectural journalism and his story is little known. It is the story of a unique figure in an extraordinary American architectural movement and an exceptional figure in the history of the Pacific Northwest.

x, 147 pages : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 26 cm

Seattle is a music town with rich, deep roots that have influenced the culture and identity of its civic life for decades. In a society that appreciates music but is ambivalent toward the profession of making it, the importance and contribution of Seattle's musicians have been routinely overlooked in historical accounts of the city. Kurt Armbruster fills that gap in this far-reaching and entertaining panorama of Seattle music from the 1890s to the 1960s, "before Seattle rocked." For this once-remote city, music forged links as real as those created by railroads and steamships. Classical music embodied the middle-class aspirations for gentility and cosmopolitan stature; jazz and blues gave Seattle's small African American community a vehicle for affirmation and economic advancement; ethnic music helped immigrants adjust to a new home; songs and drumming kept the memories of the Duwamish alive in a changing world. Before Seattle Rocked is enlivened by personal anecdotes and memories from many of Seattle's most beloved musicians and is enriched by historic photos of the changing music scene.

ix, 374 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

xix, 356 pages : illustrations ; 26 cm

Jim McDowell’s The Story of Sidney Island's Three Names traces the cartographic, linguistic, and political evolution of a prominent landform in the southern Gulf Islands by examining the layered origins of its designations. The text illustrates how corporate traders and imperial hydrographers progressively superimposed colonial designations—first as "Sallas Island" under the Hudson's Bay Company and subsequently as "Sidney Island" via British Admiralty surveys—directly over the ancestral W̱SÁNEĆ (Saanich) territory and ancient harvesting shores of SḰŦÁMEN (Sktamaen). McDowell details the changing logistics of island access and resource extraction, showing how an Indigenous marine domain defined by reef net fisheries and seasonal harvesting was re-engineered through colonial property surveys to facilitate settler pre-emptions, steam navigation in Haro Strait, and industrial brick-making operations at Sidney Spit. Ultimately, this toponymic chronicle demonstrates how successive colonial renamings functioned as deliberate instruments of spatial control across the Salish Sea, superimposing imperial administrative authority onto an enduring Indigenous archipelago.

65 pages : illustrations (some color), maps (some color) ; 28 cm

In this ambitious history, Chuck Davis embraced 125 years of material with his signature exuberance and talent for storytelling that made him one of Vancouver's most beloved journalists. This volume represents the culmination of Davis' life as a folk historian, and celebrates his immense contribution to the historical knowledge of the City of Vancouver

xviii, 574 p. : ill., ports. ; 29 cm.

Robert Galois’s Kwakwa̲ka̲'wakw settlements, 1775-1920: a geographical analysis and gazetteer explores the profound environmental adaptation and enduring spatial resilience of the Kwakwa̲ka̲'wakw people across the intricate maritime landscapes of northern Vancouver Island and the adjacent British Columbia mainland. The narrative illustrates how the dynamic environmental realities of this coastal topography—defined by labyrinthine glacial fjords, dense cedar rainforests, and the vital, rhythmic abundance of marine resources—required immense spatial ingenuity and deeply localized ecological knowledge from indigenous communities. By detailing a meticulous geographical gazetteer that tracks shifting village sites and seasonal harvesting camps over a century and a half of profound colonial contact, the text highlights how the Kwakwa̲ka̲'wakw society navigated massive demographic and economic changes by thoughtfully adapting their settlement patterns. Ultimately, the account demonstrates that collaboratively maintaining these complex spatial networks and patiently preserving traditional territorial knowledge were essential elements in sustaining a vibrant, enduring indigenous cultural identity deeply anchored to the rugged coastal geography of the Pacific Northwest.

This book provides a geographic overview of the demography and settlement patterns of the Kwakwa̲ka̲'wakw, who lived in northern Vancouver Island and the adjacent mainland of British Columbia.

xvii, 465 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm.

Oregon Plans provides a rich, detailed, and nuanced analysis of the origins and early evolution of Oregon’s nationally renowned land-use planning program. Drawing primarily on archival sources, Sy Adler describes the passage of key state laws that set the program into motion by establishing the agency charged with implementing those laws, adopting the land-use planning goals that are the heart of the Oregon system, and monitoring and enforcing the implementation of those goals through a unique citizen organization. Environmental activists, industry groups, local governments, and state officials all played significant roles. Adler brings these key actors—among them governors Tom McCall and Robert Straub, business leaders John Gray and Glenn Jackson, the Northwest Environmental Defense Center and the Oregon State Homebuilders Association—to life. Oregon Plans both informs those new to Oregon and reminds longtime residents about controversial historic issues and the consequential compromises and choices that were made to address them during the mid-1970s. The book will interest anyone involved in land use, conservation, and environmental issues—from citizens to officials to developers—in Oregon and beyond.

256 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm.

Visionary. Iconoclast. Rebel. William Trufant Foster set out in 1911 to launch the “ideal college,” and succeeded in building an intellectual liberal arts powerhouse that over the next one hundred years would perpetually seek to break the hard crust of custom and orthodoxy. Foster’s quest for excellence and truth generated a steady yield of students – ranging from poet Gary Snyder to muckraker Barbara Ehrenreich to Apple founder Steve Jobs – who left Reed College eager to challenge society’s dominant paradigms. Comrades of the Quest chronicles the colorful cultural and social history of this band of young and fiercely unorthodox West Coast intellectuals, and of the institution that nurtured them. Drawing from interviews with more than 1,400 people and from unpublished memoirs stretching back to the college’s first decades, John Sheehy weaves together a riveting story told from first-hand perspectives of this unique community’s ongoing efforts to bring Foster’s vision to life. With a punch considerably mightier than its weight, the Reed community undertakes an arduous journey through the political and educational developments of the past century— from the progressive education movement in the 1910s, the general education programs between the two world wars, scientific methodology in the 1950s, political relevance in the 1960s, theories of structuralism and deconstruction in the 1970s, the cultural wars in the 1980s, political correctness in the 1990s, to ideological bias in the 2000s—while keeping its founding ideals largely intact. At a time when America is struggling to sustain its innovative edge, Reed College remains an iconic model, equipping students with a rigorous set of skills and attitudes possible for questioning status quo thinking in a rapidly changing world. Its story, populated with a rich cast of characters, and marked by intense focus, demanding social freedom, and unconventional creativity, is no customary college history, but rather an intellectual thriller of American idealism played out against the hard world of social, religious, and political conformity, ascending great heights and persevering through near-fatal confrontations.

561 pages : illustrations ; 27 cm

Songs of Power and Prayer explores the role of song as a transformative force in the twentieth century. It traces a cultural, spiritual, and musical encounter that upended notions of indigeneity and the rules of engagement for Indians and priests in the Columbia Plateau. Chad Hamill’s narrative focuses on a Jesuit and his two Indian “grandfathers”—one a medicine man, the other a hymn singer—who together engaged in a collective search for the sacred. The priest became a student of the medicine man. The medicine man became a Catholic. The Indian hymn singer brought indigenous songs to the Catholic mass. Using song as a thread, these men weaved together two worlds previously at odds, realizing a promise born within prophecies two centuries earlier. Long before Jesuits appeared in Coeur d’Alene and Salish country, Indian prophets foretold their arrival. In their respective visions, Circling Raven and Shining Shirt were the first to behold the odd-looking men wearing long black robes, carrying with them little more than “crossed sticks” and words of a foreign prophet who lived and died a world away. Roughly a century later, the “Blackrobes” arrived, immediately translating liturgical texts and hymns into the Salish language. Calling on centuries of indigenous praxis in which song was prayer, the hymns were very quickly and consciously embodied by the Salish and Coeur d’Alene people, reinterpreted and re-sung as expressions of indigenous identity and spiritual power. Songs of Power and Prayer in the Columbia Plateau reveals how song can bridge worlds, both between the individual and Spirit and the Jesuits and the Indians. Whether sung in an indigenous ceremony or adapted for Catholic Indian services, song abides as a force that strengthens Native identity and acts as a conduit for power and prayer.

xiii, 169 pages, 4 pages of plates : illustrations ; 23 cm.

A comprehensive political history of Oregon, To the Promised Land examines the social and economic changes the state has pioneered over almost two hundred years. Highlighting major political figures, campaigns, and ballot measures, Tom Marsh traces the evolution of Oregon from incorporated territory to a state at the forefront of national environmental and social movements. From the first letter sent to Congress by Jason Lee, urging them to take possession of the Oregon Country for the United States, to John Kitzhaber’s precedent-setting third term as governor; from the land frauds of the early twentieth century to the state’s land-use planning goals; from the Beach Bill to the Bottle Bill, this book tells Oregon’s story. To the Promised Land provides the first general history of Oregon’s state government and political leaders. Marsh combines the clear expository style of a professional educator with the expertise of a political inside —a former U.S. history high school teacher, he also served two terms in the Oregon House of Representatives. Featuring interesting trivia, historical photographs, and biographical sketches of key politicians, this book will be a popular volume for general readers and public libraries as well as for textbook use in secondary and higher education classrooms.

xvi, 508 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm

Indigenous nations are on the frontline of the current climate crisis. With cultures and economies among the most vulnerable to climate-related catastrophes, Native peoples are developing responses to climate change that serve as a model for Native and non-Native communities alike. Native American nations in the Pacific Northwest, First Nations in Canada, and Indigenous peoples around the Pacific Rim have already been deeply affected by droughts, flooding, reduced glaciers and snowmelts, seasonal shifts in winds and storms, and changes in species on the land and in the ocean. Having survived the historical and ecological wounds inflicted by colonization, industrialization, and urbanization, Indigenous peoples are using tools of resilience that have enabled them to respond to sudden environmental changes and protect the habitat of salmon and other culturally vital species. They are creating defenses to strengthen their communities, mitigate losses, and adapt where possible. Asserting Native Resilience presents a rich variety of perspectives on Indigenous responses to the climate crisis, reflecting the voices of more than twenty contributors, including Indigenous leaders and Native and non-Native scientists, scholars, and activists from the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia, Alaska, and Aotearoa/New Zealand. Also included is a resource directory of indigenous governments, non-governmental organizations, and communities that are researching and responding to climate change and a community organizing booklet for use by Northwest tribes. An invaluable addition to the literature on climate change, Asserting Native Resilience will be useful for students of environmental studies, Native studies, geography, and rural sociology, and will serve as an important reference for indigenous leaders, tribal members, rural planners, and environmental agency staff.

239 pages : illustrations, maps ; 26 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

Because Oregon sits on the leading edge of a moving crustal plate, a striking diversity of geologic events have molded its topography. Over a century of study, a deeper understanding of the region’s tectonic overprint has emerged. In this timely update to the 2000 edition, Elizabeth and William Orr incorporate that new knowledge, addressing current environmental problems and detailing tectonic hazards. “Caught between converging crustal plates,” the Orrs write, “the Pacific Northwest faces a future of massive earthquakes and tsunamis.” A comprehensive treatment of the state’s geologic history, Oregon Geology moves through Oregon’s regions to closely examine the unique geologic features of each, from the Blue Mountains to the Willamette Valley, from the high lava Plains to the Coast Range. The book includes biographical sketches of notable geologists. It is lavishly illustrated and includes an extensive bibliography.

304 pages : illustrations, maps ; 28 cm

An Oregon State Library choice for “150 Books for the Oregon Sesquicentennial.” The story is the Columbia River, not the canoe and me, but I’ve learned that friends can’t hear me tell about the river until they know why I was out there. This is not an adventure story, though some adventure was unavoidable, and I didn’t set out to find myself if I could help it. Nor did I launch the trip with a large point to prove. It was a voyage of discovery, and its telling is the uncovering of surprise on a river I thought I knew… —Robin Cody, from the Prologue. On a June morning in 1990, high up in the Canadian Rockies, Robin Cody pushed his sixteen-foot Kevlar canoe through tall grass and mud to launch it on peaceful Columbia Lake, the nominal source of the river that heaves more water into the Pacific ocean than any other in North or South America. For the next eighty-two days, Cody would portage massive dams and revel in the rapids as the great river plunges 2,700 feet in 1,200 miles before reaching the river’s mouth in Astoria. Cody's canoe sneaks up on the bear and moose and raptors and beavers who make a living on the Columbia. He drops in on riverpeople: the trapper, the wind surfer, the archeologist, the lock operator, the native woman who grew up at riverside in a dwelling of tule reeds. With a generous and infectious spirit, Cody draws us into the mysteries of a much-altered and regulated river that is still, at heart, a life-giving place.

308 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm

A man of intelligence, drive, creativity, and fascinating contradictions, Straub overcame personal challenges and inevitable comparisons to his charismatic predecessor and friendly Republican rival, Tom McCall, to have a lasting impact on Oregon and the nation. Charles Johnson shares insights into Straub’s significant legacy, focusing on his leading role in the state’s financial and environmental issues and his influence on McCall. Johnson also reveals much of Straub’s warm personal story, along with his secret struggles, including his battle with depression while Governor. Standing at the Water’s Edge offers rich descriptions of other intriguing political figures of the time as well, capturing the flavor of what has been called Oregon’s political “golden age” of the sixties and seventies—created in part by the symbiotic relationship between Straub and McCall—and describing how and why it ended. Standing at the Water’s Edge is an essential addition to the literature about Oregon’s political leaders for historians, political scientists, and general readers interested in Oregon history.

xiv, 338 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

The first collection of writings and images focused on an off-reservation Indian boarding school, The Indian School on Magnolia Avenue shares the fascinating story of this flagship institution, featuring the voices of American Indian students. In 1902, the federal government opened Sherman Institute in Riverside, California, to transform American Indian students into productive farmers, carpenters, homemakers, nurses, cooks, and seamstresses. Indian students helped build the school and worked daily at Sherman; administrators provided vocational education and placed them in employment through the Outing Program. Contributors to The Indian School on Magnolia Avenue have drawn on documents held at the Sherman Indian Museum to explore topics such as the building of Sherman, the school’s Mission architecture, the nursing program, the Special Five-Year Navajo Program, the Sherman cemetery, and a photo essay depicting life at the school. Despite the fact that Indian boarding schools—with their agenda of cultural genocide— often prevented students from speaking their languages, singing their songs, and practicing their religions, most students learned to read, write, and speak English, and most survived to benefit themselves and contribute to the well-being of Indian people. The Indian School on Magnolia Avenue will be of interest to scholars and general readers in the fields of Native American studies, history, education, public policy, and historical photography.

viii, 224 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.