Pacific Northwest
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Darker red states are always considered part of the Pacific Northwest. Parts of the lighter pink area around them are sometimes included. |
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US Admiral Charles Wilkes' map of the Pacific Northwest from the 1840 expedition. |
The
Pacific Northwest (
PNW, or
PacNW) in its broadest definition is an area that includes part of the west coast of
United States and
Canada, including southeast
Alaska, all of
British Columbia,
Washington,
Oregon,
Idaho, western
Montana and northern
California and
Nevada.In the United States its boundaries are imprecise but generally coincide with the area covered by the original
Oregon Territory (created in
1848 - Oregon, Washington, Idaho and areas in Montana west of the
Continental Divide). The
Eastern Idaho region is sometimes excluded because of its cultural and economic ties to the
Rocky Mountain region, particularly
Utah. The region is culturally influenced by the upper
Midwest.
Major Pacific Northwest cities in the United States include
Seattle,
Portland,
Spokane and
Boise.
Vancouver and
Victoria are the main Canadian cities of the region.
Initial exploration
British Captain and erstwhile
pirate Francis Drake sailed off the Oregon coast in
1579 and during the early
1740s,
Imperial Russia sent the
Dane Vitus Bering to the region. Sometime in the same era a
Greek captain in the employ of the
Portuguese Empire is believed to have found the
Strait of Juan de Fuca, which bears his name.
In
1774 Juan Pérez commanded a fleet of ships sent by the viceroy of
New Spain up to lat. 55° N. This was followed by another
Spanish explorer
Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra who got it as far as
Prince of Wales Sound, reaching 59° N in
1775. In 1776 English mariner
Captain James Cook visited
Nootka Sound on
Vancouver Island and also voyaged as far as
Prince William Sound. In the 1790s Captain
George Vancouver charted the Pacific Northwest on behalf of
Great Britain, including the bays and inlets of
Puget Sound, the
Strait of Georgia and the
Johnstone Strait-
Queen Charlotte Strait and the rest of the
British Columbia Coast and
Alaska Panhandle shorelines. In
1786 Jean François La Pérouse, representing
France, sailed to the
Queen Charlotte Islands after visiting Nootka Sound but any possible French claim to this region were lost when La Pérouse and his men and journals were lost in a shipwreck near
Australia. Captain
James Barclay (also spelled Barkley) also visited the area flying the flag of the
Austrian Empire.
The United States' claim
The United States established a claim following the exploration of the region by the
Lewis and Clark Expedition, partly through the negotiation of former Spanish claims north of the Oregon-California boundary. From the 1810s until the 1840s, modern-day Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and western Montana, along with most of
British Columbia, were part of what Americans called the
Oregon Country and the British called the Columbia District. This region was jointly claimed by the
United States and
Great Britain after the
Treaty of 1818, which established a condominium of interests in the region in lieu of a settlement. In
1840 American
Charles Wilkes explored in the area.
John McLoughlin, Chief Factor of the
Hudson's Bay Company, headquartered at
Fort Vancouver, was the
de facto local political authority for most of this time.
This arrangement ended as U.S. settlement grew and President
James K. Polk was elected on a platform of calling for annexation of the entire Oregon Country. The famous slogan of this platform was
Fifty-four Forty or Fight, referring to 54 degrees latitude, 40 minutes north - the northward limit of the region. After a war scare with the
United Kingdom, the
Oregon boundary dispute was settled in the
1846 Oregon Treaty, partitioning the region along the
49th parallel and resolving most but not all of the border disputes (see
Pig War).
The mainland territory north of the
49th Parallel remained unincorporated until 1858, when a mass influx of Americans and others during the
Fraser Canyon Gold Rush forced the hand of
Colony of Vancouver Island's Governor
James Douglas, who declared the mainland a
Crown Colony, although official ratification of his unilateral action was several months in coming. The two colonies were amalgamated in
1866 to cut costs, and joined the
Dominion of Canada in 1871. The U.S. portion became the
Oregon Territory in
1848; it was later subdivided into territories that were eventually admitted as states, the first of these being Oregon itself in
1859.
See Washington Territory.
American expansionist pressure on British Columbia persisted after the colony became a province of
Canada, even though Americans living in the province did not harbor annexationist inclinations. The
Fenian Brotherhood openly organized and drilled in Washington State, particularly in the
1870s and the
1880s, though no cross-border attacks were experienced. During the
Alaska Boundary Dispute, U.S. President
Teddy Roosevelt threatened to invade and annex British Columbia if Britain would not yield on the question of the
Yukon ports. In more recent times, during the so-called "
Salmon War" of the
1990s, Washington State Senator
Slade Gorton called for the
U.S. Navy to "force" the
Inside Passage, even though it is not an officially-international waterway.
The Pacific Northwest is dominated by several mountain ranges, including the
Coast Mountains, the
Cascade Range, the
Columbia Mountains and the
Rocky Mountains. Immediately inland from the Coast Mountains and the Cascade Range there is a broad plateau, narrowing progressively northwards, and also getting higher. In the US this region, semi-arid and often completely arid, is known as the
Columbia Plateau, while in British Columbia it is the
Interior Plateau, also called the Fraser Plateau. Because many areas have plentiful rainfall and a relatively low population density, the Pacific Northwest has:
* some of North America's most lush and extensive
forests, and at one time, the largest trees in the world. Coastal forests in some areas are classified as temperate rain forest, or in some local slang, "cold jungle".
* a large number of
aluminum refineries, due to plentiful and inexpensive
hydroelectric power from, for example, the
hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River run by agencies such as the
Bonneville Power Administration.
The major cities of
Vancouver,
Portland, and
Seattle all began as
seaports supporting the logging, mining, and farming industries of the region, but have developed into major technological and industrial centers (such as the
Silicon Forest), which benefit from their location on the
Pacific Rim.
The region has four
U.S. National Parks:
Crater Lake in Oregon, and
Olympic,
Mount Rainier, and
North Cascades in Washington. Other outstanding natural features include the Oregon Coast, the
Columbia River Gorge,
Mt. St. Helens, and
Hells Canyon on the
Snake River between Oregon and Idaho. There are several Canadian National Parks in the Pacific Northwest, from
Pacific Rim National Park on the west coast of
Vancouver Island, and
Mount Revelstoke National Park and
Glacier National Park in the Selkirk Range alongside
Rogers Pass, as well as
Kootenay National Park and
Yoho National Park on the British Columbia flank of the Rockies. Although unprotected by national parks and only a handful of provincial parks, the south-central Coast Mountains in British Columbia contain the five largest mid-latitude
icefields in the world and Canada's highest waterfall (
Hunlen Falls in Tweedsmuir Provincial Park).
The Pacific Northwest's culture is quite varied, and to a certain degree reflects the varied geography of the region. While the majority of inhabitants of the western regions (which include most of the large cities) are considered to be supporters of the political
left-wing, the less-populated areas east of the
Cascade Range tend to be politically and culturally more
conservative; their residents are often considered to be part of
Middle America.
Environmentalism is very popular in most Pacific Northwest cities, from small towns such as
Ashland, Oregon to large cities like Seattle or Portland. Ecologically conscious services such as
recycling and
public transportation are fairly well-developed and generally available in the more populated areas as well. The international organization
Greenpeace was born in Vancouver in 1970 as part of a large public opposition movement in British Columbia to US nuclear weapons testing on Amchitka Island in the Aleutians.
The rainy weather promotes an indoor culture of the Pacific Northwest. Video game usage is the highest per-capita than any other region of the country. The weather is a key factor. Suicide rates are also high, as the gray weather throughout the winter and spring season can be depressing among citizens.
Washington, Oregon and California are also known for supporting progressive political views relating to othersubjects. All three states have relatively liberal
abortion laws, legalized
medical marijuana, and are supportive of
LGBT rights. Oregon was the first (and remains the only) U.S. state to legalize
physician-assisted suicide, with the
Death with Dignity Act of
1994.
The Pacific Northwest is also known for
indie music, especially
grunge and so-called
alternative rock. Foods of the area include
salmon,
huckleberries, and
coffee.
Language
The
Pacific Northwest English accent is considered to be "very neutral" to most Americans and Canadians. Although it does possess the low back vowel merger, or the
Cot-caught merger, it is one of the closest living accents to conservative
General American English. It lacks the
Northern Cities Vowel Shift, and does not participate as strongly in the
California Vowel Shift or the
Canadian raising as do other regional accents. Because of its lack of any distinguishing vowel shift, the accent is very similar to and hard to distinguish from conservative speakers in other dialect regions especially the Northern Midlands, California, and the prairies.
Chinook Jargon was a
pidgin or
trade language established among the
indigenous inhabitants of the region. After contact with Europeans, French, English and
Cree words entered the language, and "eventually Chinook became the lingua franca for as many as 250,000 people along the Pacific Slope from Alaska to Oregon". [
1] Chinook Jargon reached its height of usage in the
19th century. Today its influence is felt mostly in
place names and a handful of localized
slang terms.
Religion and spirituality
The Pacific Northwest is the least church-going part of English-speaking
North America; this is most pronounced on the part of the region west of the Cascades. Nevertheless, three of the four large international
charities in the region are faith-based:
Northwest Medical Teams International,
World Concern, and
World Vision International. The fourth is
Mercy Corps. The archetype of the Skid Road mission, a shelter offering soup and sermons to down-and-out workers and inebriates, was launched on the skid roads of Seattle and Vancouver, with the
Salvation Army having deep roots in Vancouver's
Gastown district, dating back to the era of the construction of the
Canadian Pacific Railway (
1880s) and attained prominence in the same centres during the
Klondike Gold Rush.
Despite its low rate of church attendance, the region is also known as a magnet for unique
Christian groups, ranging from the
Doukhobors to the
Mennonites of
British Columbia, and countless religiously-based communal efforts by ethnic groups such as Finns, Norwegians, Danes and others. The Mennonite Disaster Relief fund is not based in the region, but enjoys a heavy rate of enlistment and donations from the strong Mennonite community in BC's
Fraser Valley.
Exploration of eastern religions (especially Buddhism and Taoism) has been fashionable in the Pacific Northwest for many years, and
Tibetan Buddhism in particular has a strong local following. Yogic teachings, Sufism, tribal and ancient beliefs and other philosophies are widely studied and appreciated. Because of immigration to Canada the
Lower Mainland of
British Columbia has a very large
Sikh community and cultural presence as well as a major growth in
Chinese Buddhist temples and congregations. There is a small
Hindu population, a number of Parsee (
Zoroastrians), and an emerging
Muslim population from India, the Middle East, Africa, the Balkans, Southeast Asia and elsewhere.
Also attracted to the area are alternative
religions and
spirituality, such as
New Age spirituality and
Neo-Paganism. A more controversial example was the commune run by
Brother Twelve in the
Gulf Islands of
British Columbia early in the
20th Century. Created in more recent times, the cult of the allegedly immortal being
Ramtha is centred in
Yelm, Washington. The followers of the Guru
Rajneesh, the
sannyasins, established a centre for their beliefs and lifestyle near
Antelope, Oregon, which included an
ashram complex as well as, for a while, a near-takeover of the local economy. The
Emissaries of the Divine Light are a notable presence in the region of 100 Mile House, BC.
*
Cascadia*
American Indians of the Pacific Northwest from the
Library of Congress* Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest http://www.washington.edu/uwired/outreach/cspn/
*
Pacific Northwest Region of the
United States Forest Service*
Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association*
Pacific Northwest Newspaper Association*
Pacific Northwest Trail Association*
Pacific Northwest Labor and Civil Rights History Projects,
Labor History links from the
University of Washington *
What is the Northwest? and
a "Provocative description", articles from a commercial website
*
Many Relief Agencies Call the Northwest Home from
Oregon Public Broadcasting*
Pacific Northwest Community A wiki on the Pacific Northwest
*
Maritime Heritage Network, an online directory of maritime history attractions, organizations, and events in the Pacific Northwest.
*
University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections â€" Industry and Occupations Photographs An ongoing and expanding collection devoted to the workers in the Pacific Northwest from the 1880s to the 1940s. Many occupations and industries are represented including the logging and lumber industry, shipping, fisheries, oystering, canning and agriculture.
