North Cascades

CONTESTED TERRAIN:
An Administrative History
North Cascades National Park Service Complex, Washington

David Louter
1998

Contested Terrainis a history of North Cascades National Park Service Complex that examines the development of the park from its establishment to the present. This history presents a synthesis of the many issues that have concerned park managers, details the growth of the park's various programs, and analyzes the park within the larger context of the national park system. As the subtitle suggests, this history has a special emphasis; it is an administrative history for which the primary audience is park managers. It is intended to help them better understand the development of the park and management decisions within their historic context. At the same time, the study should appeal to a general audience with an interest in national parks and especially the North Cascades. It explores how North Cascades was one of the most significant conservation achievements of what we now consider the modern environmental movement with its emphasis on wilderness preservation. The desire to preserve North Cascades as a wilderness park, however, has often confronted the political compromises necessary to create the park. The designation of the area as a "park complex" with one national park and two national recreation areas symbolizes this political legacy. Although the Park Service has made wilderness its primary mission for the entire area, traditional park management issues, such as the need for more visitor services and accommodations which plagues older parks, have commanded its attention. Only here, most of those problems have been restricted to the recreation areas, the park's "wilderness thresholds." In short, the Park Service may have succeeded in protecting a national park as a "true" wilderness, but not in eliminating traditional park uses.

Another aspect of an administrative history is that it is an "organic" or evolving document, especially since this version has been posted on the park's web page. In time, we hope that park managers will revise or add new information to chapters as programs develop or issues arise -- to continue the narrative that ended in 1998. As part of that process, I welcome any comments or questions you may have about the park's history as it is presented here. My e-mail address is David_Louter@nps.gov.

Contested Terrain: North Cascades National Park Service Complex, An Administrative History by David Louter. Seattle: National Park Service, 1998; iv + 338 pp., photographs, illustrations, appendices, bibliography, index; paperbound. Limited number of copies available free to the public (call 360/856-5700 extension 351).

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Above photo: The Southern Pickett Range, 1963.
(Courtesy of North Cascades National Park)