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Oregon Country: How The Pacific Northwest Almost Became Canadian
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Mar 31, 2025
The Pacific Northwest is a vibrant region of the United States. And British Columbia is an incredible province of Canada. But while both these regions are separated by an international border, at one point, it really wasn't clear whether Britain or the United States would end up owning it all. This is the strange story of how two countries jointly managed one region called the Oregon Country.
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Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and British Columbia broadly make up the region that we call the
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Pacific Northwest. And while today there's a pretty hard line dividing the United States
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and Canada, back in the early part of the 1800s, this whole region was governed jointly by two
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competing countries trying to own it all. Here's the incredible story behind the Oregon country
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Hello and welcome to Geography by Jeff. Today we're heading back to the Pacific Northwest
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to figure out how the region came to be the way it is today. About 200 years ago, the entire region was kind of up in the air
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over whether the United States or Britain would end up owning the entire thing
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Obviously, it basically got split in half, but both countries claimed pretty extreme ends
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and we're going to explore what that might have looked like in today's video. But before we get to the episode
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as usual, be sure to check out my podcast, Geography is Everything. Each week, we explore new topics and look at them through the lens of geography
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New episodes premiere every Wednesday, and you can listen right here on YouTube, Substack, or whatever app you use to listen to podcasts
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Shortly after the United States won its war for independence, it quickly ran into issues with its former owner, Great Britain
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As both countries pushed to claim more lands in the western half of North America, they would butt heads time and time again
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The first big conflict between the two would come shortly after the United States purchased
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the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803. While this would at first appear to be a pretty clear-cut purchase of land from one country to the other
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it really wasn't all that clear whether France had the right to sell it in the first place
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Aside from the obvious issue of the land belonging to various indigenous tribes well before European colonizers arrived
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the entire region of the Louisiana Purchase, and the Mississippi River specifically, was heavily used by British traders
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As the U.S. tried to assert its dominance over the newly acquired region, it converted an old Spanish fort near St. Louis into a military fortress
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This would lead to a fairly dramatic increase in tensions between the two countries
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British traders, after all, were not accustomed to paying taxes on goods shipped through American waters
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This conflict would eventually erupt into all-out war when, in 1812, the United States would declare war on the British due to its territorial disputes
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in what was then called the Northwest Territory. This war would end two and a half years later, but without any real changes to territorial control
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The Northwest Territory would remain with the United States and the British Canadian territory of Upper Canada would remain with Britain The British also weren able to realize their ambitions to annex and take over the Louisiana territories from the United States something it had long desired to do
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As the two countries pushed further and further west in search of more land, they quickly ran into an interesting problem
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Neither had any way to enforce who truly owned what. In 1818, at the Anglo-American Convention, the two countries agreed to formally end their
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respective territorial claims in the northern part of the Louisiana territories by extending
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a border at the 49th parallel to the base of the Rocky Mountains. While neither country wanted to
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give up territory, creating a border at the 49th parallel allowed for easier surveying of land
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and thus better control of what was happening on that land. This same convention would also
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establish rules for the far west territory then known as Oregon country in the United States
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and the Columbia District in British Canada. With the Pacific Northwest being so far away
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from the eastern population centers, they opted to allow for the entire region to be jointly owned
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and controlled by both countries, a system that would not end up working out very well for anyone
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Oregon country today is now the Pacific Northwest of the United States and Canada
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and it has a clear dividing line separating the two countries. But while it seems very natural
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and obvious as to where the border is today, at one point it really wasn't all that clear who
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would end up owning what. But before we get into how the Pacific Northwest was divided
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Oregon Country has a long history of colonial claims. While today's video is primarily about the US and British claims to the region
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at one point it was claimed by Spain, who had an extensive colonial empire in the south
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Russia, who had a budding colony in modern-day Alaska, and France, which previously held large claims of land
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through the interior of North America. All three European colonial powers had claims that predate
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where the fight would ultimately end up, between the United States and Great Britain
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But no claimant would ever solidify their claims because of just how remote this region was from basically everything
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As the decades wore on, and transportation routes and technologies improved, both the US and Britain would get closer and closer to the region we know today
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The United States would base its claim in part on the American Captain Robert Gray's entry into the Columbia River in 1792
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and the Lewis and Clark Expedition from 1804 to 1806 to find a route to the Pacific Ocean
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Meanwhile Great Britain would base its claim in part on the British overland explorations of the Columbia River by surveyor and cartographer David Thompson as well as on prior discovery and exploration along the coast Despite these claims and due to its remoteness during the 1818 Anglo Convention
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the US and Britain opted to settle for something that was pretty unique even by today's standards
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Both countries would jointly own and manage the region. This would mean that traders operating in Oregon country would technically be subjected
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to two sets of laws, some of which would conflict with each other. This would set the stage for many smaller conflicts throughout the region
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In the 1820s, the Hudson Bay Company was charged with enforcing British laws in the region
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from its headquarters and burgeoning population center at Fort Vancouver, which was situated along the Columbia River in modern-day Washington state
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Meanwhile, American business tycoon John Jacob Astor, fresh off having his first foray into the region at the mouth of the Columbia River go bust
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would continue to push into Oregon country from the Rocky Mountains with his American fur trading company
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It's at this point in the history of the region that it really starts to feel like the entire
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area was destined to become part of British Canada. The United States' early efforts to establish settlements were not nearly as successful
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but as more and more Americans began learning about the region, interest in settling the
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lands and converting the indigenous tribes to Christianity picked up steam. In 1834, an American settlement in the Willamette Valley, the current home of Portland, Oregon
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started to become a destination. Sensing a shift in the winds, both countries realized that the only way to solidify their
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respective claims was to get settlers into the region, not businesses. As such, both countries
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mounted competing efforts to drive people to move there. In 1841, the British sent the Sinclair
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Expedition with more than 100 settlers through the Rocky Mountains to settle the area around
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Fort Vancouver. Meanwhile, the U.S. sent American John Gantt and between 700 and 1,000 settlers
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along the Oregon Trail to settle the area just south of the Columbia River
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It was this movement that decisively tipped the balance in favor of the U.S
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and would set the stage for a renewed fight for sole control of the territory
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By the mid-1840s, Americans were feeling emboldened in Oregon country at large
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With more settlers pouring in every day to the Willamette Valley, a common refrain was heard around the area
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54-40 or fight. This would align with the United States' extreme claim to the region at the northern line of the 54th parallel
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The goal of the slogan was to rally southern expansionists, many of whom wanted to annex only Texas
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to support the effort to annex Oregon country appealing to the popular American belief in Manifest Destiny And while the British didn have the upper hand in the region anymore they continued to claim all territory north of the Columbia River
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This would be a relatively slight retraction from their previous claims that would extend all the way to the south at the 42nd parallel
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the border of modern-day California. At this point, there were far too many Americans in modern-day Oregon
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to mount much of a realistic claim. But in Fort Vancouver and modern-day Washington
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they still had something to fight for. Despite the posturing from both countries
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there was actually very little desire by either to get into an actual war over the region
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The US was already starting to tangle with the newly independent Mexican Empire in Texas
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and the British were beginning to see the writing on the wall for the region. As such, both countries decided to negotiate
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for the territory rather than go to war. In 1846, both countries officially signed
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the Oregon Treaty, which would simply and sufficiently extend the border between the two countries
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at the 49th parallel to the Pacific Ocean. with the entirety of Vancouver Island remaining with British Canada
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This would give the United States all of the settlers and settlements Britain had been trying to keep along the Columbia River in modern-day Washington state
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But it would also stop the clamoring by Americans from trying to get the entirety of the northern regions of Oregon country
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And with that, the fight for Oregon country had come to an end. Today, the Pacific Northwest is a very prosperous region of both the United States and Canada
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Largely made up of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho on the American side, and British Columbia on the Canadian side
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the entire region is home to just over 18.8 million people. This would be led by the major cities of Seattle
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with about 4 million people in its metropolitan region, Vancouver with 2.6 million people
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Portland with 2.5 million people, and Boise with about 760,000 people. And while the region is officially part of two completely separate
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and independent countries in the United States and Canada, they do share a combined regional identity called Cascadia
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While not quite the same as the old Oregon country, in this way, the region that was once managed by two countries
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is regaining its dual national identity. Oregon country was a bizarre situation
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and had history played out a little differently, the entire region could either be part of Canada or the United States today
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Regardless, it's clear that the region's unique history has led to a shared identity
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despite an international boundary separating it in half. I hope you enjoyed learning a bit about Oregon country
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and how it evolved through history. If you did, please subscribe to my channel
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And if you wanna watch more of my videos, you can do so here. Thanks for watching
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See you next time
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