NCW Libraries

Trading Beyond the Mountains looks at the years of exploration between 1793 and 1811 leading to the commercial development of the Pacific coast and the Cordilleran interior of western North America. Mackie examines the first stages of economic diversification in this fur trade region and its transformation into a dynamic and distinctive regional economy. He also documents the Hudson's Bay Company's employment of Native slaves and labourers in the...

Hansen's enthusiasm for motorcycle exploration is contagious in this full-color, fully-detailed guide to the great roads of America's Pacific Northwest. Visitors to the region and lifetime locals alike will enjoy and appreciate the 30+ trips that Hansen has planned and perfected. This book, designed from top to bottom for motorcyclists, includes: topographical maps for each trip, section, and chapter; photocopy-able spreads with detailed maps and...

"In the Spirit of the Ancestors celebrates the vitality of contemporary Pacific Northwest Coast art by showcasing a selection of objects from the Burke Museum's collection of more than 2,400 late-twentieth- and early-twenty-first-century Native American works. Essays focus on contemporary art while exploring the important historical precedents on which so many artists rely for training and inspiration. Margaret Blackman reflects on building one of...

This is the story of the so-called Inland Empire of the Northwest, that rugged and majestic region bounded east and west by the Cascades and the Rockies, from the time of the great exploration of Lewis and Clark to the tragic defeat of Chief Joseph in 1877. And at the center of this history - perhaps even more relevant today than at the original publication of this classic volume - is the confrontation of the Indian and non-Indian during this nation's,...

Following the overland triumph of Bad Land -- whose prizes included the National Book Critics Circle Award -- Jonathan Raban goes to sea. The Inside Passage from Puget Sound to Alaska is winding, turbulent, and deep -- an ancient, thousand-mile-long sea route, rich in dangerous whirlpools, eddies, rips, and races. Here flourished the canoe culture of the Northwest Indians, with their fantastic painted masks and complex iconography and their stories...

Alexander Ross offers a completely authentic account of the earliest attempts by men of European background to come to grips with the climate, geography, and inhabitants of the Northwest at a time when resourcefulness and daring were prime virtues. It offers, moreover, an on-the-scene interpretation of the conflict between American and British interests, their rivalry for the vast wealth in Northwest furs, the conflict between free trade and corporate...

"Whether the subject is the plants that grow there, the animals that live there, the rivers that run there, or the people he has known there, Paul Lindholdt's In Earshot of Water illuminates the Pacific Northwest in vivid detail. Lindholdt writes with the precision of a naturalist, the critical eye of an ecologist, the affection of an apologist, and the self-revelation and self-awareness of a personal essayist in the manner of Annie Dillard, Loren...