The Northwest Coast is the coastal region of the Pacific Northwest, and the Northwest Plateau (also commonly known as "the Interior" in British Columbia), is the inland region. The term "Pacific Northwest" should not be confused with the Northwest Territory (also known as the Great Northwest, a historical term in the United States) or the Northwest Territories of Canada. The region is sometimes referred to as Cascadia, which, depending on the borders, may or may not be the same thing as the Pacific Northwest.
The region's largest metropolitan areas are Greater Seattle, Washington, with 4million people; Metro Vancouver, British Columbia, with 2.84 million people; and Greater Portland, Oregon, with 2.5million people.
The culture of the Pacific Northwest is influenced by the Canada–United States border, which the United States and the United Kingdom established at a time when the region's inhabitants were composed mostly of indigenous peoples. Two sections of the border—one along the 49th parallel south of British Columbia and one between the Alaska Panhandle and northern British Columbia—have left a great impact on the region. According to Canadian historian Ken Coates, the border has not merely influenced the Pacific Northwest—rather, "the region's history and character have been determined by the boundary". (Full article...)
The lake is 1,949 feet (594m) deep at its deepest point, which makes it the deepest lake in the United States, the second-deepest in North America and the tenth-deepest in the world. Crater Lake is often referred to as the seventh-deepest lake in the world, but this former listing excludes the approximately 3,000-foot (910m) depth of subglacial Lake Vostok in Antarctica, which resides under nearly 13,000 feet (4,000m) of ice, and the recent report of a 2,740-foot (840m) maximum depth for Lake O'Higgins/San Martin, located on the border of Chile and Argentina. However, when comparing its average depth of 1,148 feet (350m) to the average depth of other deep lakes, Crater Lake becomes the deepest in the Western Hemisphere and the third-deepest in the world. The impressive average depth of this volcanic lake is due to the nearly symmetrical 4,000-foot-deep (1,200m) caldera formed 7,700 years ago during the violent climactic eruptions and subsequent collapse of Mount Mazama and the relatively moist climate that is typical of the crest of the Cascade Range. (Full article...)
Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt (or hinmatóowyalahtq̓it in Americanist orthography; March 3, 1840 – September 21, 1904), popularly known as Chief Joseph, Young Joseph, or Joseph the Younger, was a leader of the wal-lam-wat-kain (Wallowa) band of Nez Perce, a Native American tribe of the interior Pacific Northwest region of the United States, in the latter half of the 19th century. He succeeded his father tuekakas (Chief Joseph the Elder) in the early 1870s.
Chief Joseph led his band of Nez Perce during the most tumultuous period in their history, when they were forcibly removed by the United States federal government from their ancestral lands in the Wallowa Valley of northeastern Oregon onto a significantly reduced reservation in the Idaho Territory. A series of violent encounters with white settlers in the spring of 1877 culminated in those Nez Perce who resisted removal, including Joseph's band and an allied band of the Palouse tribe, fleeing the United States in an attempt to reach political asylum alongside the Lakota people, who had sought refuge in Canada under the leadership of Sitting Bull. (Full article...)
Image 2The Coast Mountains are heavily eroded by glaciers, including Mount Waddington (far background, center). (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 13Public transportation is used in the Pacific Northwest region. Vancouver's SkyTrain rapid transit system achieves daily ridership of over 500,000 passengers per day on weekdays and the overall transit ridership levels in the Metro Vancouver area rank third in North America per capita. (from Pacific Northwest)
Image 16Map of "megacity", showing population density (shades of yellow/brown), highways (red), and major railways (black). Public land shown in shades of green. (from Pacific Northwest)
Image 27Pacific Northwest Trail at Blanchard Mountain in Washington (from Pacific Northwest Trail)
Image 28None of the multiple possible definitions of the Pacific Northwest is universally accepted. This map shows three possibilities: (1) The shaded area shows the historical Oregon Country. (2) The green line shows the Cascadia bioregion. (3) The labeled states and provinces include Washington, Idaho, Oregon and British Columbia. (from Pacific Northwest)
Image 32Magnetic anomalies around the Juan de Fuca and Gorda Ridges, off the west coast of North America, color coded by age. (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
... that future state senator William T. Vinton was sent to jail for contempt of court when he refused to sign a city paving contract, but was later vindicated by an Oregon Supreme Court decision?
... that while George C. Brownell played no part in the Oregon land fraud scandal, a published cartoon showed him as the "Pretty Moth" that flew too close to the land fraud limelight?
... that a mobile production unit served as the first studios of Washington state public TV station KTNW?