North Cascades

SETTLEMENT PATTERNS IN THE NORTH CASCADES

Map showing early trading posts and forts in vicinity of present-day park boundaries (shown as a broken line).

EARLY SETTLEMENT IN WASHINGTON STATE: OUTPOSTS

Before permanent white settlers moved into what is now Washington State, the primary inhabitants of the land were Native Americans and Euro-American fur traders. The Indian population included coastal and plateau tribes who subsisted on the resources of the land. White fur traders had a more obvious impact on the land, trapping animals and erecting a number of trading posts and forts throughout the region north of the Columbia River as early as 1811. [1]

Outposts such as Forts Langley, Hope, and Yale along the Fraser River, Fort Okanogan on the Columbia River, Camp Chelan at Lake Chelan, and Fort Bellingham on Puget Sound, are all representative of the earliest efforts of white settlement near the North Cascades. Their presence often led to the establishment of permanent settlements or towns. Because of the relative proximity of these outposts to the mountains, their inhabitants recorded some of the earliest written descriptions of the general character and natural resources of this region.