Northwest Coast

“ It was in reference to this settlement that the principle of the possession of the coast entitling to the possession of the interior country, had been propounded to Spain on the part of the United States.
But if we examine this principle in its application, we shall [Pg 198] find it lead to very great inconveniences. In the case of the Columbia River itself, Mr. Rush claimed the whole of the northwest coast, as far north as the 51st parallel of north latitude, because the north branch of the river rises in that latitude. ”

“ Captain Som-Kin, chief of Indian police, Umatilla reservation.
Age succeeds age, not always distinct, but often overlapping one another, and all changing the face of nature. The Coast Range rises, shutting in vast gulfs to fill later, and form the valleys of the Sacramento [27] and San Joaquin in California and the Willamette in Oregon, with the partly filled basin of Puget Sound in Washington. Centering along the Cascade barrier, an era of terrific violence shakes the very foundation of the Northwest. Elevations and contours are changed. New lake beds are created. ”

“ Origin of Cook's third voyage. We have now reached an important turning point in the history of the Northwest Coast. The British, through the earlier explorations already mentioned, had developed an extraordinary interest in the Pacific. Cook had explored Australia and New Zealand, great land masses occupied by numerous aboriginal tribes; numerous smaller islands had been found especially in the South Pacific, so the dream of Arthur Dobbs was beginning to take on some of the features of reality. ”

“ This condition, united to the cool mildness of the climate, makes the western side.of the Coast mountains a region favorable for dairying, as it is for cattle-raising and lumbering. The soil, which is excellent, produces vegetables and fruit in perfection. But owing to the rough and broken character of the mountains, communication between the coast and the interior is difficult. Good harbors affording sea approaches are rare, and owing to these joint obstacles to settlement, an otherwise delightful portion of the Northwest is but slowly coming into favor. ”

“ Through his assiduous reading and thought on the most fundamental interests in human experience he saw in clear perspective the course of change down through the centuries. The meaning of the occupation by the white man of the Pacific coast in all its relations was clear to him. As he had grown up with the country he was doubly at home in the discussion of any phase of the history of the Pacific Northwest. ”

“ We cannot say of every ruined building who built it, but certainly the builders were Indians very like the Pueblos.
Adolf F. Bandelier.—Historian, archæologist; made an extended study of the ruins of New Mexico, Arizona, and northern Mexico.
XXVII. Tribes Of The Northwest Coast. A long and narrow strip of land stretches from Vancouver Island northward to Alaska. It is bounded on the east by the great mountains, on the west by the Pacific Ocean. Its coast [pg 182] line is irregular; narrow fiords run far into the land. The climate is generally temperate, but there is much rain. ”

“ The coast, though not bad for travelling, led us so much more to the westward than I expected, in consequence of its numerous indentations, that, after above five hours' hard walking, we had only made good a W.S.W. course, direct distance six miles. We obtained on every eminence a distinct view of the ice the whole way down to Neerlo-nakto, in which space not a drop of clear water was discernible; the whole of Richards's Bay was filled with ice as before. ”

“ Paul, Northern Pacific, Oregon Shortline and Southern Pacific railroads had all reached Pacific coast terminals, and in consequence the great Northwest had gained remarkably in population, wealth and volume of trade and commerce.
In the Willamette valley the water power afforded by the streams of the Cascades and Coast ranges served to operate the early wood working and flouring mills, the woolen mills and small [300] manufacturing plants, but on Puget Sound it was more economical to operate the saw-mills by steam where the ships could reach the docks easily and quickly. ”

“ In 1792-4, Captain George Vancouver, of the British navy, in two vessels, the Discovery and the Chatham, made a complete survey of the coast, from California to Alaska, and in his endeavors to find the hypothetical northwest passage pushed his surveys into every inlet penetrating the continent, until satisfied that a passage did not exist. To him, more than to any other of the old navigators, we owe the prominent names of the coast, from Puget sound, through the devious passages of British America and Alaska, to Cook's inlet. ”

“ That any country claimed by either party on the northwest coast of America, together with its harbors, bays, and creeks, and the navigation of all rivers within the same, be free and open, for the term of ten years, to the subjects, citizens, and vessels of the two powers ”

“ It is so in our way when traveling on the North-west Coast, as not only not to be avoided, but to seem as one of our own proper belongings. The ocean steamers from San Francisco and Portland, though they no longer make this a point of destination as they did in the times of mining excitement on Frazer's River, still call here. ”

“ No large city has grown up in the Northwest on the site of the great water powers of the Columbia, Fraser, Willamette or smaller streams. Also, excepting Victoria and New Westminster, no large city has grown up on the site of the trading posts of the Hudson's Bay Company or the villages first started by the American settlers in the Willamette valley or on Puget Sound. ”

“ With the Pacific Ocean only a few miles away, with its intricate network of great and lesser rivers, and its inland tidal waters whose aggregate littoral exceeds the distance between Cape Cod and Cape Flattery, it is remarkable how much of the exploration and industrial and commercial development of the Pacific Northwest has come from the East towards the West. ”

“ Westward the sun hung like a red shield, close to the horizon, over vast reaches of prairie billowing to the sky-line in the tide of a boundless ocean. Such was the discovery of the Canadian Northwest.
Doubtless the weary gaze of the tired voyageurs turned longingly westward. Where was the Western Sea? Did it lie just beyond the horizon where skyline and prairie met, or did the trail of their quest run on—on—on—endlessly? The Assiniboine flows into the Red, the Red into Lake Winnipeg, the Lake into Hudson Bay. Plainly, Assiniboine Valley was not the way to the Western Sea. ”

“ If the Northwest be plain like a picture in your mind’s eye, you can recall how in the far North the Cascades and Rockies are intermingled, and how, as we come down through British Columbia to our own soil, they gradually separate, slope apart, so that by the time they reach the latitude of Portland, Oregon, a wide, flat domain lies between them. ”

“ But to go back to the beginning of a journey from Portland to and through West Washington. The Northern Pacific (Branch) road skirts the Wallamet highlands and river for fifteen or twenty miles, the traveller getting glimpses of each, and of Sauvé Island, as he rushes past old homesteads whose sacredness the "steam eagles" of civilization have invaded, the iron track often cutting in twain blooming orchards, now laden with the promise of a rich harvest. There certainly never were such cherry-trees as grow in the Northwest ”

“ The first, on the southwest shore, turns to the northwest a long mile distant, eventually disappearing in two big inlets, which are situated on the same shore, four leagues away from the opening which communicates with the first bay. If one goes a league and a half from the northwestern end of the inlet running farthest to the north, he rounds a point and discovers toward the west-northwest a spacious sound. ”

“ Perhaps the most prominent feature which attracts the eye of a visitor upon his arrival in the Pacific Northwest consists of the mountain ranges with their towering snowcapped peaks, forming, as it were, ladders reaching from the green vales of earth to the blue vaults of heaven. Silhouetted against the sky in the hazy distance, they are noted by the westward bound traveler as soon as he reaches the highest point in the divide of the Rockies, while to the mariner groping his way eastward upon the Pacific Ocean they offer the first evidence of the nearness of the welcome land. ”

“ A glance at a map of North America must impress one with the belief that the Pacific coast with its great extent of harbourless water-front is far less favourable to the growth or ideas, institutions, and industries than the deeply indented Atlantic shore-line. From the Isthmus of Panama to the State of Washington there is, as we have seen, but one harbour of the first class, the estuary of the Sacramento, and one of the second or third class, the estuary of the Columbia. From Puget Sound northward harbours are numberless. ”

“ As the prosperity of a country depends, next to its natural resources, upon the avenues of communication with other countries, the people of the Northwest naturally took a great interest in the improvement of their waterways. The states lying along the Mississippi and its tributaries found by these streams an advantageous southern outlet for their produce. But much needed to be done in the direction of improving navigation by clearing away obstructions, deepening the channels, and affording facilities for crossing rapids. ”

“ Of course he who "takes a run over to California" from, the East, predetermined to be back in his office or shop within five or six weeks from the day he left home, can not see the Columbia River and Puget Sound. But travelers are beginning to discover that it is worth while to spend some months on the Pacific coast; some day, I do not doubt, it will be fashionable to go across the continent; and those whose circumstances give them leisure should not leave the Pacific without seeing Oregon and Washington Territory. ”

“ Under the term WESTERN COASTS, is comprehended the space from the western extremity of the northern Van Diemen's Land to the North-west Cape of New Holland; and from thence, southward to Cape Leeuwin. The first is usually termed the North-west, and the second the West Coast: Taken together, they present an extent of shore of between seven and eight hundred leagues in length; lying in the fine climates comprised between the 11th and 35th degrees of south latitude. ”

“ No great river does, or can, take its rise below the Cascade and Sierra Nevada range; the distance to the sea is too short to admit of it. The rivers of the San Francisco bay, which are the largest after the Columbia, are local to that bay, and lateral to the coast, having their sources about on a line with the Dalles of the Columbia, and running each in a valley of its own, between the Coast range and the Cascade and Sierra Nevada range. ”

“ Improved steamboat communication, and increased facilities for inland travel, now offer inducements, which tourists are beginning to understand and appreciate. Every succeeding summer witnesses an increase of visitors, who go away, at once delighted and amazed, to spread in widening circles their tales of this wonderland. It would be no extravagant prediction to assert that in a few years hence the West Coast will become a recognised stage in the grand tour, which to miss will be to mar all pleasurable recollections. ”

“ As the Powers finally arranged it, the map of the West Coast is like a mosaic, like the edge of a badly constructed patchwork quilt. In trading along the West Coast a man can find use for five European languages, and he can use a new one at each port of call. ”

“ When the air in these valleys becomes heated by the sun, it rushes up the slopes of the Sierra Nevada as up a mighty chimney. To fill the vacuum thus created, the sea air is drawn in through every break in the coast ranges as by a blower. In the upper part of the California coast it sucks in with fury, as through the Golden Gate, piling up and demolishing high hills of sand every year, and cutting grooves on the granite fronts of mountains. ”

“ At the West, although the vast numbers do not collect that congregate in the Chesapeake Bay and Currituck Inlet, there is an independence in the mode of pursuit that has a peculiar charm; and from the facilities afforded by the nature of the ground, the excellent cover furnished by the high reeds, and the immense number of single shots, the average{207} success is as great as in the more open waters of the Southern coast. ”

“ I do not pretend to have ascended even one of the many snow-peaks of the Northwest. It requires strength and woodcraft, as well as alpine experience, to explore the Oregon mountains on their western flanks, where the canons are deep and steep, where frightful precipices are to be scaled with ropes, and changes of temperature to be encountered, before reaching the snow-fields. ”

“ A favourite method of determining the exact spots visited by the Northmen has been to compare their statements regarding the shape and trend of the coasts, their bays, headlands, etc., with various well-known points on the New England coast. It is a tempting method, but unfortunately treacherous, because the same general description will often apply well enough to several different places. It is like summer boarders in the country struggling to tell one another where they have been to drive,—past a school-house, down a steep hill, through some woods, and by a saw-mill, etc. ”

“ Its account of Puget Sound, of the Cascades with their forests, canyons, ranges and snow-peaks, and of the Columbia basin, stamps Winthrop as a true poet and lover of nature. No better descriptive writing has yet been inspired by the Northwest. ”

“ The settlement of the West had followed parallels of latitude. The men of the Lake Plains were transplanted New Englanders, New Yorkers, Pennsylvanians; the men of the Gulf Plains came from south of Mason and Dixon's line,—pioneers both, aggressive, bold in initiative, but alienated by circumstances of tremendous economic significance. If ever North should be arrayed against South, the makeweight in the balance would be these pioneers of the Northwest and Southwest. ”