Historical Dictionary of the Discovery and Exploration of the Northwest Coast of America

For this review, I hope readers will be patient if I trot through some basic geography first. The term “Northwest” takes in everything from California, Oregon and Washington State to British Columbia and Alaska. This is a vast area: from northern California to the Bering straits is two and a half thousand miles. The climate becomes steadily more inhospitable as we move northward, and the population becomes sparser: Alaska is four times the size of California with 2 per cent of its population. Even after 200 years' contact with western civilization, large parts of the area remain wild and rugged....