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Book Review
| Unsettled Boundaries: Fraser Gold and the British-American Northwest. By Robert E. Ficken. (Pullman: Washington State University Press, 2003. 200 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $19.95 paper.)
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Taking the 49th parallel as a main feature of the story, Ficken, in Unsettled Boundaries, examines the impact the Fraser rush (1858–1860) had on the Pacific Northwest. The rush drew thousands of fortune seekers—over 25,000 in all—from across the continent and produced over a million and one-half dollars in gold the first year. The significance of this much-overlooked gold rush, argues Ficken, was the pattern of north-south relations it established in the Pacific Northwest. For it was here, on the Fraser River that the origins of that region some have called "Cascadia" were established. It is a region that is economically, geographically, and environmentally contiguous, yet is separated by an arbitrary boundary line (the U. S.-Canada border) drawn by surveyors at the direction of politicians. Ficken's story focuses on how, where, and why this line was drawn on the 49th parallel. |
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