Vancouver, Whistler & Vancouver Island - Washington, Oregon and the Pacific Northwest - page 849

Meanwhile, the USA-Canada boundary dispute became a hotbed of contention. There
was a fervent settler movement to occupy the Northwest all the way up to present-day
Alaska. The 1844 presidential campaign slogan became '54/40 or fight' (referring to the
geographical parallel). The bickering finally ended in 1846, when the British and Amer-
icans negotiated the Treaty of Oregon and agreed to today's present USA- Canada bor-
der, which runs along the 49th parallel.
Accepting its inevitable fate, the HBC gave up its headquarters at Fort Vancouver and
hightailed it north to Fort Victoria on Vancouver Island (many British citizens followed,
and Vancouver Island was designated a Crown colony in 1849). In 1848 Oregon offi-
cially became a US territory.
In 1859 Oregon became the 33rd state of the union. It voted to outlaw slavery, but free
blacks still couldn't settle here, and only white men over 21 were allowed to vote.
Follow the Oregon Trail
The party was now just getting started. In the Willamette Valley, nearly 900 new settlers
arrived in one go, more than doubling the area's population. They were a trickle in what
became a flood of migrants following the 2170-mile Oregon Trail, which edged south
around the footsteps of the explorers before them - first Lewis and Clark, then adventur-
ous fur trappers and intrepid missionaries (good interpretive centers exist today in Ore-
gon's La Grande and Baker City). Between 1843 and 1860, over 50,000 fresh faces ar-
rived to a brand-new future in the gorgeous Pacific Northwest.
Spanning six states, the Oregon Trail sorely tested the families who embarked on this
perilous trip. Their belongings were squirreled away under canvas-topped wagons, which
often trailed livestock. The journey could take up to eight months, and by the time the
settlers reached eastern Oregon their food supplies were running on fumes. And there
was one last challenge: when the weary parties arrived at the Columbia River in The
Dalles, they had to choose between rafting themselves and all their belongings through
the rapids in the Columbia River Gorge or struggling up the flanks of Mt Hood and des-
cending via the precipitous Barlow Trail.
The journey ended at Oregon City, at the base of the falls of the Willamette River,
which became the region's early seat of government. Above the falls, in the river's broad
agricultural basin, small farming communities sprang up. Not far away, Portland, near
the Willamette's confluence with the Columbia River, took on an early importance as a
trade center.