Catalog of British Columbiana and Pacific Northwest Americana

The Olympic Peninsula is more than just big trees and scenic coastlines. Layered on this rich landscape are unique animals and plants, extraordinary geology, histories of Native Americans that go back thousands of years, exploits of famed European explorers, and the hard work of the early pioneers. Roadside Guide to the Olympic Peninsula is your complete guidebook as it weaves all this together while escorting you around the Peninsula.“Indispensable in the car for your next Peninsula road trip. "I learned tons and couldn’t wait to get to the next stop in Chapman’s journey. Will make anyone’s travels on the Peninsula richer and more rewarding.” —Lynda V. Mapes, author of A River Reborn and Breaking The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe and the Unearthing of Tse-whit-zen Village."This book, with its wealth of history, geology and nature, is the must have resource for the Olympic peninsula. Whether you spend a day, or a lifetime, this is the book you will refer to over and over again." —Rob Sandelin, Naturalist, teacher and author of Field Guide to the Cascades and Olympics."Christopher Chapman’s Roadside Guide to the Olympic Peninsula brings the geography, geology, and natural and human history -- as well as some of the mystery and magic -- of the Olympic Peninsula into clear and immediate focus. It is a “must-have” roadside reference for visitors to this lovely and dynamic landscape." —Tim McNulty, author of Olympic National A Natural History Book.The Book contains a complete listing of phone numbers and addresses of Ranger Stations, Government Information Centers, Visitor and Chambers of Commerce, Campground Managers, Museums and Tribes. Along with all the Audubon Society resources, the list of the most prevalent bird species and where to find them and the complete list of the National and State Registered Historic Landmarks for the Peninsula.

xiii, 318 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm

Strikes were a way of life for central Washington coal miners and their families, but Tuesday, April 3, 1934, was different. This time, people were afraid. Wives and mothers pelted cars with rocks, rotten eggs, and cow pies. They cursed and assaulted anyone who dared to cross their picket line. On a normal shift, the striking laborers spent ten or more hours at the workplace. Dressing, preparing lights and equipment, and traveling into the mine shaft--as much as an hour each way--were all done on their own time. The miners and their families wanted safer working conditions, fair wages, and a six-hour workday. So when leaders of their national union, the United Mine Workers of America, seemed indifferent to their concerns, some local members created a new organization, the Western Miners Union of America, and decided to strike. But this time, conflicting union alliances turned residents of Roslyn, Cle Elem, and Ronald against each other, and the heated, violent battle left deep and lasting scars. A refreshingly balanced account, Coal Wars captures the drama surrounding a dual union movement in the 1930s American West while portraying the region's melting pot of working families and the sociopolitical impacts of New Deal policies. Author David Bullock witnessed the bitter emotions first hand. His grandfather, a Roslyn miner, lived through the events depicted in Coal Wars.

vii, 211 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm

The Clearwater River runs deep through northern Idaho's history. The Nez Perce tribe made its home along the river. Lewis and Clark's journey west took them through the Clearwater. In fact, the Nez Perce made the expedition's voyage from the Clearwater River to the Pacific Ocean possible by teaching them how to make dugout canoes from ponderosa pine logs. Fur traders like John Jacob Astor and William Ashley financed the first American commercial activity on the river, bringing trappers to the area and paving the way for the Oregon Trail. Later came the first gold rush, the Nez Perce war, statehood, homesteaders and the beginning of the logging industry. Join author John Bradbury as he recounts a time when native tribes, explorers, trappers, preachers, miners and lumberjacks made a life along the Clearwater, establishing the area for future generations.

157 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm

Steven J. Koonce’s Idaho beer: from grain to glass in the Gem State explores the collaborative agricultural development and enduring cultural integration of the brewing industry within the diverse landscapes of the inland Pacific Northwest. The narrative illustrates how the profound environmental realities of this expansive topography—spanning the fertile, volcanic soils of the Snake River Plain to the pristine, snow-fed aquifers of the mountainous interior—required immense resilience and thoughtful agrarian adaptation from early hop farmers and barley cultivators. By detailing the gradual transition from isolated frontier settlements to the cooperative establishment of thriving local breweries, the text highlights how the state's economic and social prosperity relied on community-driven responses to its natural agricultural abundance. Ultimately, the account demonstrates that patiently cultivating the region's rich botanical resources and cooperatively building shared civic spaces around local enterprise were essential steps in transforming a rugged pioneer territory into a cohesive, culturally vibrant, and deeply rooted commonwealth.

142 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 23 cm

For most of us, the Great Depression that gripped the nation for almost 10 years in the late 1920's and '30's is only something that we vaguely recall from reading history books. In 1933 Franklin Delano Roosevelt took the reins of the nation and created the NEW DEAL. One of the most successful programs of the NEW DEAL was the creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps. It focused on getting the unemployed young men off the streets of America's largest cities and transporting them by train to their new home in camps spread across the country. These camps would be their home for a minimum of six months. The book "Camps and Calluses" discusses what lead up to the Great Depression and where and how the CCC camps in southwestern Oregon played their part. This book follows my other ones in style and narrative. It highlights with photographs the camps and work projects in the region while being supported by a detailed narrative on each camp. Sadly, there is little evidence left to prove the CCC boys were here. The camp sites have all disappeared and only a few rock walls have stood the test of time to demonstrate their work. So, I decided to write a book about what they did. --author

224 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 29 cm + 1 map

John Mullan's celebrated road - a 625-mile link that connected the Missouri and Columbia Rivers - established the West Point graduate as an accomplished engineer. After completing the Northwest's first engineered highway at age thirty-two, he lived for nearly another half century, a period of dynamic change. When he died in 1909, automobiles were making their initial crossings along his route. The arterial eventually became a critical link in America's longest interstate freeway, I-90. Yet despite frequent mentions in books about the nineteenth century Northwest, the soldier/explorer has remained little more than a caricature: a dashing young Army officer who comes West, builds one of its most important thoroughfares, and then disappears from regional literature. Now, in lively prose, Idaho State Historian Keith Petersen takes a fresh look at Mullan, whose road significantly impacted the development of the Northwest. Mullan's story includes business partnerships and personal relationships with some of the West's most intriguing characters: Father Pierre-Jean DeSmet, General William T. Sherman, Chico founder John Bidwell, Idaho gold discoverer Elias Pierce, Yakama Indian chief Owhi, and others. The first comprehensive portrayal of John Mullan's life, this deeply researched biography probes the explorer's complex personality, his rise to fame, and his fall from grace.

336 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm

In the frontier towns of Idaho, the combination of gold diggers, corrupt officials, and hot-headed vigilantes created an easily combustible mixture. Serial killer Lyda Lewis made a comfortable living for a while by poisoning her unsuspecting husbands and cashing in on their life insurance policies. When federal investigators were unable to uncover the Eddy and Splawn families’ gold coin counterfeiting scheme, a teenaged store clerk finally infiltrated the operation and gave the authorities enough evidence to send the ringleaders to prison. And “Diamondfield” Jack Davis, who nearly hung for his unfortunate combination of an itchy trigger finger and a big mouth, escaped the noose thanks to his association with the powerful cattlemen.

xv, 175 pages : illustrations, map ; 23 cm

"The air had no oxygen, like being trapped underwater ... I was being cremated, the pain unbearable."--Jim Scymanky. "I was on my knees, my back to the hot wind. It blew me along, lifting my rear so I was up on my hands ... It was hot but I didn't feel burned--until I felt my ears curl."--Mike Hubbard. A napping volcano blinked awake in March 1980. Two months later, the mountain roared. Author Richard Waitt was one of the first to arrive following the mountain's early rumblings. A geologist with intimate knowledge of Mount St. Helens, Waitt delivers a detailed and accurate chronicle of events. His eruption story unfolds through unforgettable, riveting narratives--the heart of a masterful chronology that also delivers engrossing science, history, and journalism

x, 413 pages : illustrations ; 26 cm

To those with an interest in railroad history in the United States, mention of the words "narrow gauge" may bring to mind the extensive three-foot-gauge railroads of Colorado and Utah or perhaps the famous two-foot-gauge lines in Maine. However, few would think first of Oregon and the Pacific Northwest. Nonetheless, between 1877 and 1893, an extensive narrow-gauge railroad developed in Oregon" one that had aspirations of crossing the Cascade Mountains and connecting with the Central Pacific Railroad, thus giving Oregon its first access to the transcontinental railroad system. It is this railroad system, from its inception in 1877 to the present day, that Ed Austin explores herein.

127 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm.

The promise of opportunity drew twenty-seven-year-old Illinois schoolteacher William Winlock Miller west to the future Washington Territory in 1850. Like so many other Oregon Trail emigrants Miller arrived cash-poor and ambitious, but unlike most he fulfilled his grandest ambitions. By the time of his death in 1876, Miller had amassed one of the largest private fortunes in the territory and had used it creatively in developing the region’s assets, leaving a significant mark on the territory’s political and economic history. Appointed Surveyor of Customs at the newly created Port of Nisqually in 1851, Miller was the first federal official north of the Columbia River. Two years later he helped organize the new territory‘s Democratic Party and quickly became a political and financial confidant of governor Isaac Stevens. His involvement in the Indian conflict in 1855–56, a term in the territorial legislature, and his bankrolling of key politicians made him the territory’s most effective political networker. His role as a “hip-pocket banker” in a region without established banks made him a powerful financial broker and a major player in territorial affairs. But in his pursuit of success Miller compromised another ambition he carried west from Illinois. He postponed marriage and family until only a few years before his death and agonized about relationships with his family in Illinois. His experience reminds us that the pioneer settlement era was a period of social dislocation and that public economic and political success could mask personal disappointment. Lang’s biography takes readers into the heart of Washington territorial politics, where alliances often hinged more on mutual economic interest than political principles and nearly all agreed that government should encourage ambitious and energetic men. In this world, Lang argues, Miller succeeded because he parlayed his talents in camaraderie politics and sharp-pencil business affairs with an unabashed mining of governmental opportunities. William Lang’s account of William Winlock Miller and the first quarter century of Washington’s history offers a new view of the pioneer era, emphasizing that the West was developed in large measure by men like Miller who manipulated government and its resources to their own and the region’s advantage.

xiii, 310 pages : illustrations, map ; 23 cm

"Few regions of the country produced such a distinctive group of artists with such a particular view on the modern world as did the Pacific Northwest in the 1930s and 1940s. Capitalizing on their particular geographical position at what was a modern art outpost--working free from the strong influences of New York and Europe, and sitting at the portal to the Far East--a close-knit group of artists sought to address the global political, social, and economic ills of their time. The seminal figures in this group--Mark Tobey and Morris Graves especially--quickly garnered critical attention in New York for their uncommon imagery and expressive technique, which drew upon spiritual tenents ranging from Zen Buddhism to the Persian Bahai faith and their mastery of Asian calligraphy. Modernism in the Pacific Northwest presents an overview drawn from SAM's unparalleled collection of the key figures of this generation: painters Mark Tobey, Morris Graves, Guy Anderson, Kenneth Callahan, Leo Kenney, Paul Horiuchi, and George Tsutakawa, and sculptors Phil McCracken and James Washington. Patricia Junker is the Ann M. Barwick Curator of American Art at the Seattle Art Museum and is the author of Albert Bierstadt and Edward Hopper"-- Provided by publisher

ix, 102 pages : illustrations ; 32 cm

In the 1950s, the city of Seattle began a transformation from an insular, provincial outpost to a vibrant and cosmopolitan cultural center. As veteran Seattle journalist R. M. Campbell illustrates in Stirring Up Seattle: Allied Arts in the Civic Landscape, this transformation was catalyzed in part by the efforts of a group of civic arts boosters originally known as “The Beer and Culture Society.” This “merry band” of lawyers, architects, writers, designers, and university professors, eventually known as Allied Arts of Seattle, lobbied for public funding for the arts, helped avert the demolition of Pike Place Market, and were involved in a wide range of crusades and campaigns in support of historic preservation, cultural institutions, and urban livability.

xxxv, 251 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Photographer Edward Curtis’s 1914 orchestrally scored melodrama In the Land of the Head Hunters was one of the first US films to feature an Indigenous cast. This landmark of early silent cinema was an intercultural product of Curtis’s collaboration with the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw of British Columbia—meant, like Curtis’s photographs, to document a supposedly vanishing race. But as this collection shows, the epic film is not simply an artifact of colonialist nostalgia. In recognition of the film’s centennial, and the release of a restored version, Return to the Land of the Head Hunters brings together leading anthropologists, Native American authorities, artists, musicians, literary scholars, and film historians to reassess the film and its legacy. The volume offers unique Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw perspectives on the film, accounts of its production and subsequent circulation, and evaluations of its depictions of cultural practice. Resituated within film history and informed by a legacy of Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw participation and response, the movie offers dynamic evidence of ongoing cultural survival and transformation under shared conditions of modernity.

xxvii, 420 pages ; 26 cm.

"The Yakama Nation of present day Washington State has responded to more than a century of historical trauma with a resurgence of grass roots activism and cultural revitalization. This path-breaking ethnography shifts the conversation from one of victimhood to one of ongoing resistance and resilience as a means of healing the soul wounds of settler colonialism"--Page 4 of cover

xii, 139 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

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

xxvi, 273 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Found on the history shelves of the Greater Victoria Public Library, these twenty true stories are brought to life by Stephen Ruttan. They draw a picture of the life of a city with a recent past that's both unconventional and colourful. From Miss Wilson and her famous parrot, Louis, to Jimmy Chicken Island, named after a man who acquired his surname from his habit of stealing chickens, to the Pig War, when Britain and the United States nearly came to blows over the San Juan Islands, to the rise and fall of Francis Rattenbury, one of Victorias best-known architects, these stories reveal a lively history of a West Coast capital city. Archival illustrations, newspaper clippings, and modern photos help make Vancouver Island Scoundrels, Eccentrics and Originals a delightful and illluminating read.

184 pages : illustrations (some colour), maps, portraits ; 19 cm.

Written by Robert Heacock with photography by Kris Townsend, Wind hard from the west chronicles the daily activities and location descriptions of the Lewis and Clark Expedition on the Snake and Columbia Rivers, complete with maps, plus historic and modern photos. This copy is sold in coil or (spiral) binding.

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

Essential information for Northwest tribes, traditions, languages, place names, and systematic word study by George Gibbs from the 1850s

266 pages ; 27 cm

Makah families left the coastal village of Ozette in the 1920s to comply with the federal government's requirement that they send their children to school, and by doing so they ended nearly 2000 years of occupation at this strategic whale- and seal-hunting site on Washington's Olympic Peninsula ologist Richard Daugherty took note of the site in a survey of the coast in 1947 and later returned at the request of the Makah tribal chairman when storm waves began exposing both architecture and artifacts. Full-scale excavations from 1966 to 1981 evealed houses and their contents--including ordinarily perishable wood and basketry objects that had been buried in a mudflow well before the arrival of Europeans in the region

xvii, 102 pages : illustrations, maps ; 26 cm

Where the Waters Begin takes us up the Nisqually side of Mount Rainier through the traditional beliefs of the Nisqually people and their relationship to the bountiful natural resources the mountain offered them. The Nisqually are the original stewards of the prairies, mountains, and rivers west of the mountain on lands that are now Thurston and Pierce Counties. Living in a more natural world, without the complexities of today, they developed a coexistence with nature that included respect and appreciation of its beneficent forces as well as fear of its darker sides. The deep connection the Nisqually people developed with the mountain they called Ta-co-bet is best related through their traditional stories. Author and Nisqually tribal historian Cecelia Svinth Carpenter brings those stories to life here in Where the Waters Begin: the Traditional Nisqually Indian History of Mount Rainier.

108 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm

For fifteen years, Evelyn Hess and her husband David lived in a tent and trailer, without electricity or running water, on twenty acres of wild land in the foothills of the Oregon Coast Range. When they decided to build a house – a real house at last – they knew it would have to respect the lessons of simple living that they learned in their camping life. They knew they could not do it alone. Building a Better Nest chronicles their adventures as they begin to construct a house of their own, seeking a model for sustainable living not just in their home, but beyond its walls. What does it mean to build a better nest? Better for whom? Is it better for the individual or family? The planet? Green building and sustainable design are popular buzzwords, but to Hess, sustainable building is not a simple matter of buying and installing the latest recycled flooring products. It is also about cooperative work: working together in employment, in research, in activism, and in life. Hess is concerned with her local watershed, but also with the widening income gap, disappearing species, and peak resources. She actively works to reduce overconsumption and waste. For Hess, these problems are both philosophical and practical. As Hess and her husband age, the questions of how to live responsibly arise with greater frequency and urgency. With unfailing wit and humor, she looks for answers in such places as neuroscience, Buddhism, and her ancestral legacy. Building a Better Nest will appeal to anyone with an interest in sustainable building, off-grid living, or alternative communities. The questions it asks about the way we live are earnest and important, from an author whose voice is steeped in wisdom and gratitude.

191 pages ; 23 cm

"Around the start of the last century, the forests of the Pacific Northwest were viewed as dynamic sites of industrial production, and also as natural landscapes of ecological integrity. These competing visions arose as the nation's professional foresters faced conflicting demands from lumber companies and government regulators. External pressures converged with internal scientific debates within the profession, leading foresters to question the proper scope of their work. Money Trees is an interdisciplinary history of the crucial decades that shaped the modern American conception of the value of the forest. It begins with early twentieth century environmental changes in the Douglas Fir forests of the Pacific Northwest, which led to increasing divisiveness and controversy among foresters. Brock balances this regional story with a national view of the intellectual and political currents that governed forest management, marshaling archival evidence from industry, government, and scientific sources. An important contribution to environmental scholarship, Money Trees offers a nuanced vision of forestry's history and its past relationship to both wilderness activism and scientific ecology. With fresh perspectives on well-known environmental figures such as Bob Marshall and Gifford Pinchot, it will add to the conversation among scholars in environmental history, history of science, and the history of the American West. It will be welcomed as a key resource across the spectrum of environmental studies, and by anyone interested in natural resources, land management, the role of science in environmentalism, and the modern wilderness movement."-- Back cover

272 pages : illustrations, map ; 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

"The life of prominent Oregon political leader Monroe Sweetland spans the spectrum of 20th-century America. Through seven decades, Sweetland experienced the economic collapse of the Great Depression, the unparalleled violence of a nation at war, the divisiveness of Cold War politics, and the cultural and political turmoil of the Vietnam War. Historian William G. Robbins illuminates the wrenching transformation of American political culture in A Man for All Seasons : Monroe Sweetland and the Liberal Paradox. Racial and economic inequalities motivated much of Sweetland's civic life, including his lifelong memberships in the American Civil Liberties Committee, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Urban League, the Japanese American Citizens League, and the Red Cross, where Sweetland worked repatriating American prisoners of war after Japan's surrender. Robbins' portrait is holistic, exploring Sweetland's socialist beginnings, inconsistencies in his politics--especially during the Cold War--and his regional legacy. He was the most important person in the resurgence of the modern, liberal Oregon Democratic Party from the late 1940s to the 1960s. He joined the National Education Association in 1964 and became the driving force behind the Bilingual Education Act of 1968 and the fight for the age-18 vote, achieved in the ratification of the 26th amendment in 1971. Monroe Sweetland was a nationally prominent figure, whose fights bequeathed to modern America important legislation that shaped its political landscape"-- Provided by publisher

xi, 300 pages ; 24 cm

"Carved into a rock overlooking the Columbia River stands the arresting image of Tsagigla'lal, or "She Who Watches," an ancient female chief. As the Wishram people recount, when men replaced women in positions of power, Tsagigla'lal was turned to stone by Coyote so that she could forever guide her community and guard its development. Using the story of She Who Watches as her guide, Armitage shows that even though women were barred from positions of public authority until recently, they have always worked quietly and informally to assure the stability and security of their families and communities. Women's community-building and cooperative skills have been decisive in developing the societies of the Pacific Northwest--Washington, Oregon, Idaho, western Montana, and British Columbia. Like She Who Watches, women have never been mere observers, but watchful guardians and active shapers of the public good. Drawing on her three decades of research and teaching and based on hundreds of secondary sources, Armitage's account explores the varied ways in which, beginning in the earliest times and continuing to the present, women of all races and ethnicities have made the history of our region. An accessible introduction for general readers and scholars alike, Shaping the Public Good restores a missing piece of Pacific Northwest history by demonstrating the part that women--"the famous, the forgotten, and all the women in between"--have always played in establishing their families and building communities."-- Provided by publisher

349 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm