North Cascades - History

History

On the United States side of the border, early inhabitants of the North Cascades included the Nooksack, Skagit, and Sauk-Suiattle tribes on the west, and the Okanagan people on the eastern side, with the Nlaka'pamux people of what is now Canada claiming hunting territory in the heart of the range, south across the border into Washington. The tribes living and using the range on the Canadian side of the border are the Nlaka'pamux, Sto:lo and the Upper and Lower Similkameen subgroups of the Okanagan. A now-extinct group known as the Nicola Athapaskans also inhabited and hunted in the area now occupied by the Similkameen. Many current geographic names in the region are derived from native terms, either by transliteration or translation. Beckey notes that "Many names were derived from Chinook Jargon, mostly applied by the United States Forest Service from 1910 to 1940...."

Fur traders entered the area in the first half of the 19th century, coming from Canada and from Astoria on the Columbia River. One of the earliest was Alexander Ross of the North West Company, who crossed the range in the summer of 1814, probably via Cascade Pass. The period of uncertainty surrounding the disputed Oregon Country gave way following partition along the 49th Parallel to a period of tentative U.S. Army exploration in tandem with violent subjugation of Indian tribes on the American side of the frontier in the second half of the century. With the partition, the Hudson's Bay Company was forced to seek an alternative to its older Brigade Trail via the Okanogan River and the construction of a new route over the northern spine of the Canadian Cascades from the area of Spuzzum into the valley of the Coldwater River to connect fort Langley on the lower Fraser with its northern posts in New Caledonia. The route was impracticable and was soon abandoned, though more southerly routes through what is now Manning Park laid the foundations for later routes such as the Dewdney Trail and the modern Crowsnest Highway via Allison Pass, and was later similar to a route via the Coquihalla Pass for its southern mainline. South of the boundary, reconnaissance for possible railroad routes (none of which were viable north of the one eventually put in over Stevens Pass, at the southern edge of the North Cascades) and various mining rushes.

Miners dominated the exploration and development of the range from the 1880s through the early 20th century. For example, mines around the boomtown of Monte Cristo, in the southwest portion of the North Cascades, produced "between $1 and $2.7 million in silver and gold". The Holden Mine, on the east side of the main divide, produced 106,000 tons of copper and 600,000 ounces of gold. Discovery of gold by American prospectors on the banks of the Thompson River at its confluence with the Nicoamen River, at the northern tip of the range, helped trigger the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush of 1858-1860 which in turn prompted the declaration of the Colony of British Columbia to affirm British possession of territories north of the 49th Parallel. The Fraser rush led to exploration of the Cascades to the east of the canyon and in the valley of the Similkameen River, with minor rushss in the area of Princeton, British Columbia in 1859 through the early 1860s and the creation of non-native towns (on top of much older native ones) at Boston Bar, Lytton and Hope, as well as Princeton.

Early settlers also arrived in the foothills of the North Cascades in the latter half of the 19th century, and utilized the range in a limited way as a source of timber and grazing land. However, the range is so rugged that this exploitation was less dramatic than in other more gentle landscapes.

Early recreational use of the range included expeditions by the local climbing clubs, The Mountaineers and The Mazamas. However even these groups did not fully explore the inner reaches of the range and ascend the most difficult peaks until the 1930s and 1940s.