North Cascades

EARLY IMPRESSIONS: EURO-AMERICAN EXPLORATIONS AND SURVEYS

EARLY REGIONAL EXPLORATIONS

While Vancouver and Baker explored the Northwest from the deck of a ship, others began to penetrate the immense territory on foot. In 1793 fur trader Alexander MacKenzie completed an overland journey across northern British Columbia to the Pacific Ocean. By following the Peace and Parsnip Rivers to their headwaters, then crossing mountain summits to reach the Fraser River, MacKenzie was successful in reaching the coast. Although MacKenzie is recognized as being the first white man to accomplish such a feat, he was mistaken in his belief that he had followed the Columbia River to the Pacific. [6]

After MacKenzie's significant journey, Americans Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set out in 1804 with orders to "observe the territories . . . from the north of the Missouri to the Pacific Ocean," and complete the explorations that MacKenzie had initiated eleven years earlier. With the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, a vast region formerly closed to American traders was now open. One of the primary missions of the Lewis and Clark expedition was to explore the various resources of the newly acquired land and determine the feasibility of a transcontinental trade system using the Missouri River. [7] Their route eventually led them from the Snake River to the Columbia River, and west to the Pacific Coast.

As Americans began to move westward, the British, who had several holdings in the Northwest, sought to strengthen their claims to the territory. The North West Company enlisted Simon Fraser, a company employee, to continue the exploration efforts initiated by MacKenzie. In 1808 Fraser set out to explore what he, too, believed was the Columbia River. Because of treacherous waters he was able to navigate the river only as far as MacKenzie had some fifteen years earlier. Frustrated, Fraser calculated his position and realized, much to his chagrin, that neither he nor his predecessor had been following the Columbia River. In recognition of his journey, however, Fraser named the river after himself. [8]

At the same time Fraser was exploring this watercourse, a fellow North West Company employee was wintering, unknowingly, at the headwaters of the Columbia River. Looking for a trade route for the North West Company, David Thompson led a party down the Columbia to its mouth in 1811. [9] In doing so, he became the first white to traverse the Columbia from its headwaters to the Pacific Ocean. [10]

A week after Thompson arrived at Fort Astoria near the mouth of the Columbia River, David Stuart, an employee of the American Fur Company, set out to establish a trading post at the confluence of the Okanogan and Columbia Rivers, a site northeast of today's national park. [11] Alexander Ross, a member of the Stuart party who would later gain fame for his crossing of the North Cascades, recorded in his journal the daily progress of the canoes as they headed up the Columbia River. By the 29th of August 1811, the expedition had reached the mouth of the Chelan River, and three days later, a site for the new American outpost was chosen. [12]

Because of its prime location along two important waterways, Fort Okanogan remained in operation for many years. Built in 1811 and rebuilt in 1816, the post served as a strategic base camp from which Ross, Stuart, and other explorers ventured out on trading excursions primarily up the Okanogan and Similkameen Rivers into what is now British Columbia. The post was also an important rendezvous point for fur brigades traveling down the Columbia River to the coast. [13] Over the course of four decades the post came under the control of three different fur trading companies before it was abandoned in 1859. [14]

In the mid-1850s a major expedition was launched by the government of the United States to find a practical and economical railroad route from the headwaters of the Mississippi River to Puget Sound. The expedition was led by Washington Territory's first Governor, Isaac I. Stevens.

On the 8th of April, 1853, I [Stevens] was assigned to the duty of exploring a route for the Pacific railroad from St. Paul, or some eligible point on the upper Mississippi, to Puget Sound. My instructions required me to examine carefully the passes of the several mountain ranges, the geography and meteorology of the whole intermediate region, the character, as avenues of trade and transportation, of the Missouri and Columbia Rivers, the rains and snows of the route, especially in the mountain passes, and in short, to collect every species of information bearing upon the question of railroad practicability. . . . As the route was comparatively new and unexplored, it was determined to organize the whole command into two divisions -- the eastern division being under my immediate direction, and the western division under Captain George B. McClellan of the Corps of Engineers. . . . [15]

Beginning on the western coast with orders from Stevens to "operate in the mountains until they are thoroughly explored or till driven away by the snow, " Captain George B. McClellan made his way to the eastern foothills of the Cascades, traversing the Wenatchee valley of the Columbia River. [16] He eventually reached the foot of Lake Chelan. [17] After crossing the outlet of Lake Chelan, McClellan moved his party northward, reaching the Okanogan River on September 27. The group camped along the river about one and a half miles from "Fort Okinakane [sic], an old and ruinous establishment of the Hudson Bay Company. [18] McClellan described the fort's structures, noting that "little business is now transacted here." The fort's caretaker, Joe Lafleur, informed McClellan that while "there was no pass between Mt. Baker and the Hudson's Bay Company's trail from Okinakane to Langley [in British Columbia]," there was a foot trail that led from the headwaters of the Methow River over to Puget Sound. [19]

The following seven days were spent exploring this route and an alternate route along the Twisp River. McClellan directed a member of the expedition party, Lieutenant Johnson Kelly Duncan, to navigate the Methow River as far as practical. Continuing on foot, Duncan surveyed the region "until the roughness of the trail and the barometer assured him of its unfitness for a railroad." [20] McClellan examined the Twisp River, noting: "I was by this time quite certain that this route would not answer for a railway but determined to keep on upon the same trail myself until the question could be fairly settled." [21] He followed the valley of the Twisp River until reaching War Creek, which he followed until the trail became impassable for pack animals. He then proceeded "on foot until there was no longer any doubt as to the impracticability of the route." [22] From here, McClellan observed:

The trail is said to pass from this ravine, [War Creek] over a very difficult country [War Creek Pass & Purple Pass] to the stream emptying into the head of Lake Chelan [Stehekin River], then to cross very steep and lofty mountains at the head of that stream [Cascade Pass], and finally to reach the Skagitt [sic] river on the western slope. [23]

After his reconnaissance of the Methow and Twisp River valleys, McClellan and party left Fort Okanogan and proceeded northward to explore the Okanogan River. They eventually headed east to Fort Colville where they met Governor Steven's division and completed their monumental assignment.

Although some scholars believe McClellan was lackadaisical and incomplete in his survey work, his expedition was valuable for many reasons. [24] It provided a wealth of general information that was previously unknown. McClellan was the first to explore the area of the North Cascades as far north as the 49th parallel, documenting various water courses and drainages, oftentimes to their source. He found and verified that the territory was "erroneously laid down on [earlier] maps," and that this northern country was very rugged, refuting former beliefs about the region. [25] It was also McClellan who determined that only two passes in the Cascades appeared promising as railroad routes. Since these passes were in the south, closer to Mount Rainier, the northern Cascade Range would untouched by railroad development for many years to come.

Four years after McClellan's expedition, a civilian group, led by a Major Van Bokkelon, entered the Skagit River from Puget Sound in 1859. Navigating upriver in search of gold, they were the first Euro-Americans known to have penetrated beyond a massive natural log jam in the river. [26] Turning up the Baker River, the party proceeded as far as Baker Lake, where they were stopped by Mount Baker to the northwest. [27]

The next major U.S. Army expedition, which took place nearly three decades after McClellan's, was led by First Lieutenant George B. Backus, Jr., in 1883. The group's assignment was to locate a railroad route through the North Cascades. Accompanied by reporter and mapmaker First Lieutenant George Washington Goethals (who would later gain fame as builder of the Panama Canal), Backus began his expedition in British Columbia. Backus and Goethals traveled west along the Similkameen River and south to the Okanogan River. From the outlet of the Okanogan they headed west to the Twisp River, choosing to follow the north fork (now considered the main branch of the Twisp River) because Backus "was sure from what he had heard the miners say, and learned from the Indians, . . . that the pass [over the Cascade Mountains] was at the head of this branch." [28]

Establishing camp in the vicinity of Silver Peak, Backus and Goethals hiked the remaining five or six miles to the summit of the Cascades. From there they observed a stream flowing westward, believing it to be the Skagit River. Unbeknownst to the explorers the watercourse they saw from their vantage point was probably Bridge Creek, a tributary of the Stehekin River. [29] This point was the limit of their journey; scholars today believe the explorers were near Twisp or Copper Pass, east of today's park boundary.

Three years later, in 1886, a civilian party of explorers approached the North Cascades near the park's northwest boundary. The six surveyors, all residents of Whatcom (now Bellingham), traveled to the north fork of the Nooksack River with the dual objectives of prospecting and locating a wagon route from Bellingham Bay to the upper Skagit River. As they followed the north fork, they detoured time and again to climb a peak or ascertain a drainage's direction. Eventually reaching Ruth Creek, they hiked the watershed to its source, Ruth Mountain. Despite their efforts they apparently failed to find the pass that would have led them down into the broad Chilliwack River valley and into today's park. [30]