{North Cascades National Park originally posted by US Interior} The North Cascades are the homeland of many different contemporary Native Nations including the Nooksack, Upper Skagit, Sauk-Suiattle, Colville, and Yakama in the U.S. as well as the Sto:lo and Nlakapamux in Canada.

In the mid 19th century, the state of Washington was eager to make treaties with the tribes as quickly as possible to allow for white settlement of the area - sometime without tribal representatives even there. North Cascades is land ceded in the Treaty of Point Elliott and the Treaty with the Yakima. While members of the Upper Skagit and Sauk-Suiattle nations did sign the Point Elliott Treaty, the Nooksack were included despite not signing and expected to move to reservations with the other tribes. Likewise, members of tribes that became the contemporary Colville Nation like the Chelan, Entiat, Methow, and Wenatchee people were never party to the Yakima Treaty, but were still expected to leave simply because their homeland was on the land ceded in the treaty by other nations.

In reality, most people didn’t leave their homes or move to reservations until forced out by other events and policies like the gold rush, boarding schools, termination, and the eventual creation of reservations closer to home in the 1970’s and 80’s, but contemporary resource conflicts still exist - see part two of this post. #publiclandisnativeland