North Cascades Ethnography of The North Cascades

The ethnographic and ethnohistorical data clearly indicate that in late protohistoric and early postcontact times four Native American tribes claimed and made regular seasonal use of segments of the mountainous country now within the boundaries of the North Cascades National Park, the Ross Lake National Recreation Area, and the Lake Chelan National Recreation Area. These were the Upper Skagit of the middle Skagit drainage, including the Ross Lake sector; the Chilliwack of the Chilliwack drainage, astride today's international boundary; the Lower Thompson of the Fraser River canyon and the mountains south into the Skagit River country of Washington; and the Chelan of a short reach of the Columbia River and of Lake Chelan and the Stehekin drainage.

A brief foreword lays the foundation for the report. It makes explicit the more important goals of the study, identifies the native groups involved, and briefly characterizes the four tribes in broad linguistic and cultural terms.

The principal section of the report summarizes in considerable detail the total-culture configuration of each tribe. Each of these four chapters is introduced by a brief, evaluative survey of the main ethnographic and ethnohistorical sources of information, a summary of the names variously used for the tribe, a definition of its territorial borders, a description of its linguistic and cultural affiliations, and a review of the early population estimates for the group. The main body of each chapter describes in some depth the traditional culture of each tribe: its subsistence quest, material culture and technology, settlement characteristics, travel and trade patterns, social and political structure, life cycle, religion, diversions, and what may be termed its cognitive culture. Special attention is paid to data relating directly or indirectly to the group's utilization of the varied resources of the mountainous regions of its homeland and describing the social, religious, and other segments of its life mode in its high elevation country. This information is most complete for the Thompson, though even here far from rich, comprehensive, and detailed, and is most wanting for the Chilliwack and particularly the Chelan. Each chapter closes with a section drawing together and discussing the implications of these scattered mountain data.

A brief epilogue presents the conclusion that the data collected in this present study is insufficient in scope and detail to allow a meaningful comparison of the highland adaptations of the four tribes. They are likewise inadequate to support an assessment of the relative importance of biogeoclimatological factors as against factors of cultural ../background and orientation in setting the pattern of a group's adaptation to its mountain terrain. A tentative design for further research is suggested.

This report was prepared for the North Cascades National Park Service in compliance with Contract Number CX-9000-4-E0076. March 1987.