Early Days in the North Cascades

Evidence exists that suggest that the area within North Cascades National Park has been used by natives for at least 8,000 years. People knew where food and other resources were located throughout the range, and when the best time of the year was to access these resources. On a background page about the history of the national park, the Park Service notes:

“Native people of the North Cascades were hunters, fishers and gatherers who lived in a severe and changing environment. The lives of the Native people of the North Cascades were closely tied to the natural environment and vulnerable to changes in the abundance or scarcity of the resources they depended upon. They used the various mountain areas for different purposes at different seasons as food-gathering and settlement needs required.”

Native American Exploration of the Region

The North Cascades provided abundant food and medicine. Depending on the topography, elevation, and drainage, foragers used different techniques to obtain what they required. Over time, Native Americans learned not only how to read the land, but how to store the food and medicines they found. Evidence of settlements have been found around Newhalem on the Skagit River. Evidence of settlements, including pictographs have been found around Lake Chelan. Natives utilized rough trails deep into the mountain range for hunting and foraging and crossed over the range using mountain passes such as Cascade Pass and Rainy Pass.

Most evidence of early settlement in the North Cascades relates to tools used for cooking and hunting. Following patterns of people throughout the region, early inhabitants most likely set periodic fire to clear parts of the forest of underbrush. This helped make travel easier and benefitted both game and opened areas to allow for different types of plants to grow. It is not believed that any large villages existed above 2000 feet elevation in the range, but rather inhabitants moved in small groups at higher elevation in the mountains and made use of areas for fishing and hunting camps.

The higher subalpine and alpine areas provided significant sources of roots and berries. These provided an important staple for diets, and provided for food used to trade between groups.

In “Range of Glaciers” noted alpinist and author Fred Beckey writes: “There is some evidence that Indians would not climb mountains because they did not want to angle the powerful spirits there who could cause storms, eruptions, or avalanches. A plausible explanation for the apparent contradiction is that the Indians considered certain high snow peaks along the western range front to be guardian spirits.” While the North Cascades provided food for the Native Americans, it also was a place important to their spiritual practices and their reverence for the land.

American and British Exploration of the Region

The first written record of someone crossing the North Cascades was Alexander Ross in 1814. Most likely the party with Ross crossed over Cascade Pass with two objectives:

assess the potential fur trade in the region and,
attempt to identify a shorter route to Puget Sound from a base in Fort Okanogan.

The National Park Service notes: “The important information from Ross' journal is the fact that he was guided by local Native people who were familiar with the trails and terrain. This is a commonality with subsequent explorations, that is, that they depended upon Native knowledge to assist them in their "discoveries".

After the international boundary between the United States and Canada was established in 1846, the joint United States-Great Britain Boundary Commission surveyed the 49th parallel from 1857 to 1859.

This survey party relied on Native guides to navigate trails Natives had established through the region. George Gibbs, a member of the party, explored the route from Lake Chelan over Cascade Pass to the Skagit River. He prepared a map, part of which is detailed in the exhibit to the right.

1850's

Starting in the 1850s, miners started prospecting for gold on the west side of the range along the Skagit River. Eventually some gold was found in the 1870s along Ruby Creek. Miners continued to scour the region for mineral resources over the decades. Some areas prospected were included in the eventual park complex. The National Park Service notes:

“Over the next few decades, miners turned their attention to other minerals, primarily silver and lead, located higher in the mountains. New claims were established in the high country around Cascade Pass, including Doubtful Lake, Boston and Horseshoe Basins and Bridge Creek. A rich silver deposit was found just below Boston Glacier near the headwaters of Thunder Creek in 1892, and another rush was on. Some silver was located, but the costs of getting the ore out were too high. By 1913 most of the Thunder Creek mining companies had folded. Mining continued along the Stehekin drainage through the 1910's until metal values dropped and it became too costly.”

1870's to 1880's

In the 1870’s surveyors searched for a potential railroad route through the North Cascades. Given the steep, jagged terrain, no route was identified. These surveyors used Native American guides and noted they were “experts in glissading” (Beckey, pg 14). Native Americans of the region were not only familiar with the food sources and routes through the region, they were also expert in traveling through the diverse terrain of the area. Beckey writes: “For hunting, fishing, and berry picking, as well as distant trading, Pacific Northwest Indians – both on the flanks of the range and within it – traditionally followed and improved numerous trails, sometimes across passes. A limited number of mountain passes provided good east-west crossings, and it is evident from the location and wide distribution of known trails that the Cascade Range Indians had the navigational skills to negotiate the treacherous mountains.” (Beckey, 21).

In 1887, the Great Northern Railroad surveyed for a potential railroad route from Lake Chelan to the Skagit River. This survey team, led by Albert Rogers, encountered snow, steep avalanche chutes, and ultimately found no passable route for a railroad over the mountains. I backpacked over part of the route this survey took. It is incredibly scenic terrain but way too steep for a railroad grade without significant blasting and tunneling through challenging mountainous terrain.