Catalog of British Columbiana and Pacific Northwest Americana

Published in 1844 amidst escalating border tensions, Adam Thom’s The Claims to the Oregon Territory Considered serves as a rigorous legal rebuttal to American assertions of sovereignty over the Pacific Northwest. Written by a British judicial officer employed by the Hudson's Bay Company, the pamphlet meticulously dissects the historical categories of discovery, settlement, and contiguity to argue that Great Britain possessed a paramount legal title to the entire region. A keen insight drawn from the text is how Thom strategically restricts his analysis to "materials furnished by the Americans themselves"—specifically targeting the historical memoirs of U.S. diplomats like Robert Greenhow—thereby turning American logic against itself to portray British imperialism not as an aggressive conquest, but as the only valid application of international treaty law.

pages 69-71. map

Published as a collection of his correspondence, Jesuit missionary Pierre-Jean De Smet’s Letters and Sketches documents his arduous 1841-1842 journey to establish St. Mary's Mission among the Flathead (Salish) Indians in the Bitterroot Valley of present-day Montana. The text provides vivid, firsthand ethnographic observations of the Rocky Mountain tribes, detailing their daily customs, buffalo hunts, and initial enthusiastic reception of Catholicism. A keen insight drawn from the letters is the profound paradox of De Smet’s mission: while he deeply admired the Indigenous peoples and frequently romanticized them as uncorrupted paragons of natural virtue, his ultimate objective was to systematically replace their traditional spiritual practices with rigid European Catholic orthodoxy. Furthermore, these widely circulated letters inadvertently acted as powerful promotional literature for westward migration, accelerating the white American expansion that would ultimately dismantle the isolated indigenous Catholic utopias De Smet had hoped to build.

pages [123]-411 : 13 plates ; 25 cm.

Published in 1842, Philip Leget Edwards’s Sketch of the Oregon Territory: Or, Emigrants' Guide stands as one of the earliest practical manuals designed to facilitate American overland migration to the Pacific Northwest. Drawing from his firsthand experiences as an educator at Jason Lee’s Methodist mission in the 1830s, Edwards provided prospective pioneers with critical logistical details regarding the region's geography, climate, indigenous populations, and agricultural potential. A keen insight drawn from the publication is how its strategic printing in Missouri—the primary launching point for the Oregon Trail—demonstrates how seemingly objective frontier guidebooks functioned as deliberate promotional propaganda to accelerate American mass settlement and physically preempt British claims to the disputed territory.

20 pages 19 cm

"The Memoir relates principally to the southern and middle portions of the northwest coast of this continent and the adjoining territories, which have for many years formed the subjects of discussions between the Governments of the United States, Great Britain, and Russia; and it is designed to show the origin, nature, and extent of the several claims, in order to afford the means of correctly estimating the justice of each"--Page iv

xi, 228 pages : folded map ; 24 cm

Washington Irving's 'Astoria' chronicles the story of John Jacob Astor's ambitious attempt to establish a trading post on the Columbia River in Oregon in 1810. Irving narrates the adventurous spirit of the pioneers, their encounters with native tribes, and the legacy they left behind. It is a gripping tale of exploration and enterprise, ideal for readers of adventure and history.

xvi, 336 pages ; 22 cm

Containing an account of the Indian title, the nature of a right of sovereignty, The first Discoveries, Climate and Seasons, Face of the Country and Mountains, Natural Divisions, Physical Appearance and Soil of Each, Forests and Vegtable prouductions, rivers, bays.

80 pages frontispiece (folded map) 22 cm

The story of one adventurer from Massachusetts who made the overland journey to the Rocky Mountains in 1832. A cousin of Nathaniel J. Wyeth, he joined his expedition and relates the tragedies and travails that plagued the expedition and its members as they passed through barren lands and encountered Native Americans.

87 pages ; 19 cm

Ross Cox was a fur trader for the Pacific Fur Company. In 1811 he sailed form New York, around the Horn, to Hawaii, and on to the Columbia River, exploring inland to Montana along the Clark Fork and Flathead Rivers. For six years he lived on the frontier--and beyond--in a violent world of white and red men, bears and wolves, frostbite, and starvation. He wasn't a hero, but he was a survivor, and a sharp observer who wrote one of the best firsthand accounts of the fur trapper's life.

340 pages

The Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804-1806 across America from Pittsburg to the Pacific and back was the third recorded transcontinental journey. President Jefferson had negotiated the Louisiana Purchase of over two million square kilometres from the French in 1803, and the aim of the expedition was to investigate the territory involved. He commissioned a Corps of Discovery as a scientific and military expedition to survey the acquisition, appointing his aide Meriwether Lewis (1774?1809) to lead it. It was hoped to discover that the Missouri and other rivers could be used for transcontinental communication and transport, and to assess the natural resources of the area. Some of the party returned east with specimens, reports and a map, while the remainder reached the Pacific in December 1805. Volume 3 covers the return journey, during which Lewis and Clark separated to survey more of the tributaries of the Missouri

3 volumes 6 maps (including folded frontispiece) 22 cm

Having begun his naval career as a midshipman in Captain Cook's second and third voyages (1772-1778), in 1791 George Vancouver was commissioned by the Admiralty to travel to the Pacific north-west coast of Canada to negotiate a solution to the escalating trade conflict between Britain and Spain in the Nootka Sound and to further and explore the coastline of the region. In April 1791, Vancouver, commanding the sloop HMS Discovery, set sail from Britain under the escort of the gunship HMS Chatham. Following brief stops in Tenerife, Cape Town and Australia, the ships arrived in the Pacific Northwest in June 1792 and Vancouver began to survey the rugged coast of the Straits of Georgia. Landing at the site of the present-day city of Vancouver on 13 June, the expedition encountered a welcoming Coast Salish community, who fed and accompanied them while they spent the night ashore. The voyage later circumnavigated and surveyed the island now known as Vancouver Island before returning to Britain in 1795. The extensive account of the voyage was edited by Vancouver's brother, John, and published in three volumes in 1798. Though not as gripping as earlier travel accounts, tending to focus on surveys and nautical charts, Vancouver's surveys were nevertheless important in establishing British dominance in the region into the nineteenth century.

3 volumes : illustrations (engravings), map (engraving) ; 32 cm (4to) + 1 atlas ([16] leaves of plates (6 folded) : illustrations, maps ; 46 cm)

Jonathan Carver, who was born in Massachusetts, served in the colonial militia during the French and Indian War rising to the rank of Captain and mastering the techniques of surveying and map making. He left the army in 1763 with the intention of exploring the new territories acquired by the British as a result of the war. In 1766 Robert Rogers appointed Carver to lead a semi-official expedition to find a route via lakes and rivers to the Pacific Ocean and the East Indies. Carver left Fort Michilimackinac at Mackinack Island in the spring of 1766, travelling along the northern coast of Lake Michigan, before cutting across to what is now the Door County peninsula in Wisconsin and continuing along the western edge of the bay until reaching what is now Green Bay, Wisconsin. From here he traveled up the Fox River to the Winnebago Indian village at the north end of Lake Winnebago. He continued up the Fox River until he arrived at the "Grand Portage" (a well used portage between the Fox River and the Wisconsin River). Carver then crossed to the Wisconsin River and traveled down to the Mississippi emerging at the great trade encampment at Prairie du Chien. He then turned north into what is now Minnesota. By the late summer he had reached the Saint Anthony Falls (Minneapolis). He spent some time near the falls but turned south, down the Mississippi to find a more suitable place to spend the winter, setting camp in a tribal village in what is now eastern Iowa. The next spring he continued exploring and mapping the Mississippi River through what is now Minnesota and Wisconsin before eventually returning in 1768 to the British fort at Mackinack. In pursuit of a claim for compensation from the British Government for the work he had put into the expedition, Carver travelled to London and it was here that the present work was published. "Carver's book was an immediate success when first published in 1778, and a second London edition followed the next year; over thirty editions and versions have been published since in several languages. A very important book in the history of the exploration of the American West as Carver was the first English-speaking explorer to venture west of the upper Mississippi River. He anticipated the idea of a continental divide as he was the first to mention a large mountain range to the west (presumably the Rocky Mountains) that blocks the westward passage. Further, the name 'Oregon' appears in print here for the first time, both in the text, and on one of the maps. Carver penetrated farther into the West than any other English explorer before the Revolution and stimulated curiosity concerning routes to the Pacific, later satisfied by Mackenzie and Lewis and Clark."

xvi, vii, [2], 10-282, [2] p. ; 17 cm. (12mo)

"Some copies issued on larger paper with coloured plates. Streeter noted variations in copies and describes one with an extra plate on the Philippines. Meares commanded the Felice Adventurer and Iphigenia, Captain Douglas, on a trading voyage for the Associated Merchants. The seizure of his ships by the Spanish at Nootka led to an international crisis, eventually resolved by the Nootka Convention of 1790. His exaggerated claims concerning his exploits and hardships were strongly attacked by George Dixon (no. I48). The account of voyages was edited by William Combe from Meares's papers, ref. D.N.B. The appendices contain the official instructions for the voyage, and various documents concerning the seizure, including Meares's Memorial to the House of Commons which was also published separately (no.363)." -- Strathern, G. M., & Edwards, M. H. (1970). Navigations, traffiques & discoveries, 1774-1848: A guide to publications relating to the area now British Columbia. Victoria, BC: U

viii, [12], xcv, [1], 372, [108] pages, 26 unnumbered leaves of plates (some folded) : illustrations, maps ; 30 cm

First edition of the account of Captain James Cook's third voyage (1776-1780), consisting of three quarto volumes of text and plates, and one folio atlas, the latter without title-page

3 volumes : 25 illustrations, maps (some folded) ; 30 cm (4to) + 1 atlas (63 leaves of plates (2 folded) : all illustrations, 2 maps, portraits ; 58 cm (folio))