Author’s note: The British explorer, George Vancouver, upon first seeing this area in 1792, wrote in his diary: The serenity of the climate, the innumerable pleasing landscapes, and the abundant fertility that unassisted nature puts forth, require only to be enriched by the industry of man.
The Pacific Northwest region is a narrow strip of coastal land extending from the northern end of the Alaska panhandle, through coastal British Columbia south to the mouth of the Columbia River. To the west lies the Pacific Ocean and to the east the Cascade Mountains. These are volcanic mountains and there are still fissures with rising steam from some of the peaks today. Five hundred years ago, because of lava close to the surface, a side of Mt. Rainier gave way and slid into Puget Sound, creating the land on which the present city of Seattle sits.
Thousands of islands are scattered off the mainland, and in some areas in the north, fjords as dramatic and beautiful as those in Norway can be found. Lush rain forests of spruce, fir, red and yellow cedar, hemlock, and pine trees blanket the land, growing right up to the coastline. The region is interlaced with rivers, streams, and creeks of all sizes fed by fall and winter rains and by melting snow from the mountains in the spring.
Most of the region enjoys a relatively mild climate thanks in part to the Japanese current that passes along the coast. Only areas to the north in Alaska get regular freezing temperatures and heavy snowfall. The Cascade Mountains capture moisture coming off the Pacific Ocean, producing a wet climate six months of the year. Yet, surprisingly, the total rain accumulation in the Seattle area averages only 36 inches a year (New York gets 40 inches a year), and there are few torrential downpours. Most of the rain occurs during the months of October through March.
Puget Sound is located in the northwest corner of Washington State near the Canadian border. It lies between the Cascade and Olympic mountains with Mt. Baker to the north and Mt. Rainier (the highest in the range at 14,410 feet) to the south. It encompasses more than 700 square miles of waterway and 1,400 miles of coastline. Before Euro-American contact, it was the center of much Native commerce and activity all along its shores. Today Puget Sound is one of the finest harbors on the Pacific Rim and the center of the salmon industry in the Northwest.