Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest is a geographic region in Western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though no official boundary exists, the most common conception includes the U.S. states of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho and the Canadian province of British Columbia. Some broader conceptions reach north into Alaska and Yukon, south into Northern California, and east into western Montana. Other conceptions may be limited to the coastal areas west of the Cascade and Coast mountains.
The Northwest Coast is the coastal region of the Pacific Northwest, and the Northwest Plateau, is the inland region. The term "Pacific Northwest" should not be confused with the Northwest Territory or the Northwest Territories of Canada.
The region's largest metropolitan areas are Greater Seattle, Washington, with 4 million people; Metro Vancouver, British Columbia, with 3.4 million people; Greater Portland, Oregon, with 2.5 million people; the Boise, Idaho metropolitan area with 845,877 people, and the Spokane-Coeur d'Alene combined statistical area with 793,285 people.
The culture of the Pacific Northwest is influenced by the Canada–United States border, which the United States and the United Kingdom established at a time when the region's inhabitants were composed mostly of indigenous peoples. Two sections of the border—one along the 49th parallel south of British Columbia and one between the Alaska Panhandle and northern British Columbia—have left a great impact on the region. According to Canadian historian Ken Coates, the border has not merely influenced the Pacific Northwest—rather, "the region's history and character have been determined by the boundary".
Definition
Definitions of the "Pacific Northwest" region vary, and even residents of the region do not agree on the exact boundary. The most common conception includes the U.S. states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and the Canadian province of British Columbia.Broader definitions of the region have included the U.S. states of Alaska and parts of the states of California, Montana, and Wyoming, and the Canadian territory of Yukon.
Definitions based on the historic Oregon Country reach east to the Continental Divide, thus including all of western Montana and western Wyoming. Sometimes, the Pacific Northwest is defined as being the Northwestern United States specifically, excluding Canada.
History
Indigenous peoples
The Pacific Northwest has been occupied by a diverse array of indigenous peoples for millennia. The Pacific Coast is seen by some scholars as a major coastal migration route in the settlement of the Americas by late Pleistocene peoples moving from northeast Asia into the Americas.The coastal migration hypothesis has been bolstered by findings such as the report that the sediments in the Port Eliza Cave on Vancouver Island indicate the possibility of survivable climate as far back as 16 kya in the area, while the continental ice sheets were nearing their maximum extent. Other evidence for human occupation dating back as much as 14.5 kya is emerging from Paisley Caves in south-central Oregon as of 2008. However, despite such research, the coastal migration hypothesis is still subject to considerable debate.
Due in part to the richness of Pacific Northwest Coast and river fisheries, some of the indigenous peoples developed complex sedentary societies, while remaining hunter-gatherers. The Pacific Northwest Coast is one of the few places where politically complex hunter-gatherers evolved and survived to historic contacts, and therefore has been vital for anthropologists and archaeologists seeking to understand how complex hunter and gatherer societies function. When Europeans first arrived on the Northwest Coast, they found one of the world's most complex hunting and fishing societies, with large sedentary villages, large houses, systems of social rank and prestige, extensive trade networks, and many other factors more commonly associated with societies based on domesticated agriculture. In the interior of the Pacific Northwest, the indigenous peoples, at the time of European contact, had a diversity of cultures and societies. Some areas were home to mobile and egalitarian societies. Others, especially along major rivers such as the Columbia and Fraser, had very complex, affluent, sedentary societies rivaling those of the coast.
In British Columbia and Southeast Alaska, the Haida and Tlingit erected large and elaborately carved totem poles that have become iconic of Pacific Northwest artistic traditions. Throughout the Pacific Northwest, thousands of indigenous people live, and some continue to practice their rich cultural traditions, "organizing their societies around cedar and salmon".
Initial European exploration
Sailing for the Spanish Crown,Portuguese navigator Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo became in 1542 the first European to explore the west coast of today's United States and reached as far as Punta del Año Nuevo, north of Monterrey. Bartolomé Ferrer continued on and may have reached as far north as the Rogue River on the Oregon coast.
By 1579, English captain and erstwhile privateer Francis Drake sailed up the west coast of North America during the course of his circumnavigation undertaking. Drake may have reached as far North as 48N and may have conducted some preliminary assessments of the western entry channels to the Northwest Passage under royal secrecy order. He then headed back south to land, to careen the ship, to rest and to continue on the undertaking. Drake and his crew eventually found a protected cove where they landed, in either the Pacific Northwest or Northern California. Contacts with a local indigenous population were established over the course of several weeks. While ashore, Drake claimed the area for Queen Elizabeth I as Nova Albion or New Albion. Various theories regarding the landing location of New Albion in the northern Pacific have been proposed, including the one recognized by the United States National Historic Landmark and California Historical Landmarks at Point Reyes National Seashore.
By 1589, Ortelius was publishing the Maris Pacifici first ever Pacific map featuring on the west coast of North-America a first ever representation of two major coastline features: the mouth of the Columbia River identified as "Rio Grande" and the delta of the Fraser River labeled "Baia de las isleas".
Juan de Fuca, a Greek captain sailing for the Crown of Spain, supposedly found the Strait of Juan de Fuca around 1592. The strait was named for him, but whether he discovered it or not has long been questioned.
During the early 1740s, Imperial Russia sent the Danish-born Russian Vitus Bering to the region. By the late 18th century and into the mid-19th century, Russian settlers had established several posts and communities on the northwest Pacific coast, eventually reaching as far south as Fort Ross, California. The Russian River was named after this local presence and three ranch outposts located alongside.
In 1774, the viceroy of New Spain sent Spanish navigator Juan Pérez in the ship Santiago to the Pacific Northwest. Peréz made landfall on Haida Gwaii on July 18, 1774. The northernmost latitude he reached was 54°40′ N. This was followed, in 1775, by another Spanish expedition, under the command of Bruno de Heceta and including Juan Peréz and Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra as officers. On July 14, 1775, they landed on the Olympic Peninsula near the mouth of the Quinault River. On August 17, 1775, Heceta, returning south, sighted the mouth of the Columbia River and named it Bahia de la Asunción. While Heceta sailed south, Quadra continued north in the expedition's second ship, Sonora, reaching Alaska, at 59° N. In 1778 English mariner Captain James Cook visited Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island and also voyaged as far as Prince William Sound.
In 1779, a third Spanish expedition, under the command of Ignacio de Artega in the ship Princesa, and with Quadra as captain of the ship Favorite, sailed from Mexico to the coast of Alaska, reaching 61° N. Two further Spanish expeditions, in 1788 and 1789, both under Esteban Jose Martínez and Gonzalo López de Haro, sailed to the Pacific Northwest. During the second expedition, they met the American captain Robert Gray near Nootka Sound. Upon entering Nootka Sound, they found William Douglas and his ship Iphigenia. Conflict led to the Nootka Crisis, which was resolved by agreements known as the Nootka Convention. In 1790, the Spanish sent three ships to Nootka Sound, under the command of Francisco de Eliza. After establishing a base at Nootka, Eliza sent out several exploration parties. Salvador Fidalgo was sent north to the Alaska coast. Manuel Quimper, with Gonzalo López de Haro as pilot, explored the Strait of Juan de Fuca, discovering the San Juan Islands and Admiralty Inlet in the process. Francisco de Eliza himself took the ship San Carlos into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. From a base at Port Discovery, his pilotos José María Narváez and Juan Carrasco explored the San Juan Islands, Haro Strait, Rosario Strait, and Bellingham Bay. In the process, they discovered the Strait of Georgia and explored it as far north as Texada Island. The expedition returned to Nootka Sound by August 1791. Alessandro Malaspina, sailing for Spain, explored and mapped the coast from Yakutat Bay to Prince William Sound in 1791, then sailed to Nootka Sound. Performing a scientific expedition in the manner of James Cook, Malaspina's scientists studied the Tlingit and Nuu-chah-nulth peoples before returning to Mexico. Another Spanish explorer, Jacinto Caamaño, sailed the ship Aranzazu to Nootka Sound in May 1792. There he met Quadra, who was in command of the Spanish settlement and Fort San Miguel. Quadra sent Caamaño north, to carefully explore the coast between Vancouver Island and Bucareli Bay, Alaska. Various Spanish maps, including Caamaño's, were given to George Vancouver in 1792, as the Spanish and British worked together to chart the complex coastline.
From 1792 to 1794, George Vancouver charted the Pacific Northwest on behalf of Great Britain, including the Strait of Georgia, the bays and inlets of Puget Sound, and the Johnstone Strait–Queen Charlotte Strait and much of the rest of the British Columbia Coast and southeast Alaska shorelines. For him the city of Vancouver and Vancouver Island are named, as well as Vancouver, Washington. From Mexico, Malaspina dispatched the last Spanish exploration expedition in the Pacific Northwest, under Dionisio Alcalá Galiano and Cayentano Valdes aboard the schooners Sutil and Mexicana. They met Vancouver in the Strait of Georgia on June 21, 1792. Vancouver had explored Puget Sound just previously. The Spanish explorers knew of Admiralty Inlet and the unexplored region to the south, but they decided to sail north. They discovered and entered the Fraser River shortly before meeting Vancouver. After sharing maps and agreeing to cooperate, Galiano, Valdés, and Vancouver sailed north to Desolation Sound and the Discovery Islands, charting the coastline together. They passed through Johnstone Strait and Cordero Channel and returned to Nootka Sound. As a result, the Spanish explorers, who had set out from Nootka, became the first Europeans to circumnavigate Vancouver Island. Vancouver himself had entered the Strait of Juan de Fuca directly without going to Nootka first, so had not sailed completely around the island.
In 1786, Jean-François de La Pérouse, representing France, sailed to Haida Gwaii after visiting Nootka Sound, but any possible French claims to this region were lost when La Pérouse and his men and journals were lost in a shipwreck near Australia. Upon encountering the Salish coastal tribes, either Pérouse or someone in his crew remarked, "What must astonish most is to see painting everywhere, everywhere sculpture, among a nation of hunters". Maritime fur trader Charles William Barkley also visited the area in Imperial Eagle, a British ship falsely flying the flag of the Austrian Empire. American merchant sea-captain Robert Gray traded along the coast, and discovered the mouth of the Columbia River.