Vancouver, Whistler & Vancouver Island - Washington, Oregon and the Pacific Northwest - page 847

Otters & Beavers Lose Out
The British and Americans soon tapped into the Northwest's bounty of fur-bearing wild-
life. While in the Northwest in 1778, Cook's crew traded with Native Americans for an-
imal pelts, of which sea otter and beaver were the most valuable. This trade dominated
British and US economic interests in the northern Pacific for the next 30 years, until the
War of 1812 stuck a thorn in the side of relations between the two countries.
Trappers from two competing British fur-trading companies - the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany (HBC, still in operation today) and the North West Company - began to expand
from their bases around Hudson's Bay and the Great Lakes, edging over the Rocky
Mountains to establish fur-trading forts. These forts traded with local Native Americans
for beaver, otter, fox, wolf or whatever other fur-bearing animal had yet to be wiped out.
In 1811 the American fur magnate John Jacob Astor established a post in Astoria (where
presently there's a historical building housing the Fort George Brewery). During the War
of 1812, however, it was sold to the North West Company, which merged with the HBC
in 1821. The HBC created a network of relationships with Native American tribes
throughout the region, establishing headquarters at Fort Vancouver - today a National
Historic Site.
By 1827 the Northwest's borders were becoming more defined. Spain had withdrawn
its claim, establishing the northern border of New Spain at the 47th parallel (the current
Oregon-California border). Russian ambitions were limited to the land north of the 54°
40' parallel, at the start of the Alaska panhandle, near Prince Rupert, BC. The USA,
through the Louisiana Purchase, owned all land south of the 49th parallel and east of the
Rocky Mountains, while Britain controlled the territory north of this line. This left a vast
territory of present-day British Columbia - the states of Oregon, Washington and Idaho
and parts of western Montana and Wyoming - open to claims by both Britain and the
USA.
The Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812, included an amendment that de-
clared a joint custody (of sorts) of the Pacific Northwest: Britain and the USA could con-
tinue economic development in the area, but neither could establish an official govern-
ment.
In Chinese markets, an exceptional sea-otter pelt could fetch the equivalent of a year's
pay for a fur-company laborer.