Story & Photos by Greg Shine, BLM

For millennia, people have named places in a variety of ways. Some places are named for their resemblance to objects, like Table Rock; some for their function, like Miner’s Flat or Fishermen’s Bend; and some for their features, like Split Rock.

Some are also named for people, or events that have taken place there. Both of these are the case with McLoughlin Canyon, a BLM recreation site just south of the Canadian border near Tonasket, Washington. In July 1858, a battle between American miners and a coalition of Chelan and Okanagan Indians resulted in the canyon’s name. While Chelan and Okanagan accounts have been largely lost to time, this incident still characterizes, in broader terms, one of the greatest conflicts in the history of the American West – the conflict between mining and native peoples.

Earlier in the summer of 1858, an armed party of aspiring gold miners mustered in at Oregon City, traveled through The Dalles to Wallula, and continued up the Columbia and Okanogan rivers into the lands of the Chelan, Okanagan and other tribes, bound for the gold fields of today’s British Columbia. They were just 150 of the more than 8,000 fortune seekers who would eventually use this route, and a small portion of the 30,000 individuals estimated to have traveled to the Canadian gold fields during the Fraser River rush.

Led by David McLoughlin, son of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s iconic chief factor Dr. John McLoughlin, the motley crew of rough-and-tumble men known as “David McLoughlin’s Company” disregarded repeated warnings from the U.S. Army and tribal representatives to stay out of the area, induced instead by potential riches –what newspapers termed the “Fraser River Fever.” Though miners, they came from a variety of locations and backgrounds, and knew the danger of encroaching on native lands. “Probably there was never a party on the Pacific Coast better qualified for Indian warfare than this,” remembered one of these men, Richard G. Willoughby, “the majority of the men having had long years of experience in this venturesome life and who had served the United States Government in the war with Mexico.”

Following the Okanogan River’s east bank on the morning of July 29, 1858, the party (now captained, according to one account, by a different McLoughlin) advanced into a narrow canyon long used as a north-south shortcut by native peoples and fur trade brigades. “We came to a bold rocky bluff which ran clean out to the river, and it was impossible to get around it,” recalled party-member Robert Frost, “so we had to make a detour to the right and go through what is now known as McLaughlin’s Canyon, before we could get to the river again. … As I recollect it, it is quite narrow with high perpendicular walls, and natural terraces, and benches. The benches being only accessible from the northern end; at the south end (our entrance), it was an utter impossibility to get at anyone on those benches except with a rifle.”

Today’s visitor can experience exactly what Frost remembered, for its distinct geography lent the canyon a particular strategic advantage. This was not lost on the Okanagans and Chelans, who, watching the mining party’s advance and anticipating its entrance into the canyon, deployed in ambush, determined to thwart the miners’ trespass. As Frost described, “they had gotten on those benches and, and thrown up rock breastworks and laid for us.” The party’s advance guard soon entered the canyon, and the Okanagan and Chelan forces initiated their attack. “As it was an Indian on one of the benches showed himself, and one of the head guard gave the alarm when they opened fire,” said Frost. “As quick as possible, the horses were rushed to the rear, back to the river, and all those available took what shelter they could get. … After the animals were down on the flat, every available man with a gun was up to the front.” In the end, six miners and an unknown number of Chelans and Okanagans were killed, and the entire party of miners retreated, fleeing back across the river.

Any victory was short-lived, for the mining party resumed its trek north a few days later – and continued to skirmish with native peoples in the process. However, word of the firefight soon spread. Combined with the U.S. Army’s loss to a tribal coalition of Spokanes, Palouses, and Coeur d’Alenes at the Battle of Tohotonimme or Pine Creek two months earlier--which had set in motion a larger two-pronged military offensive under Col. George Wright—this incident fostered public fear in Oregon and Washington Territories and provoked military backlash. Ultimately, it led to a treaty signed on September 23, 1858, following the Battle of Four Lakes, which relegated the area’s native people to reservations and opened up much of their tribal land to whites for mining and homesteading.

As for David McLoughlin, he would not return to Oregon until shortly before his death, in 1901, living out his remaining years near the Canadian border in Port Hill, Idaho. He frequently responded to letters asking about his father and his experiences with the Hudson’s Bay Company in the Pacific Northwest, but any personal recollection of the battle in the canyon that today holds his name remains to be located.

McLoughlin Canyon today offers recreational opportunities such as hiking, horseback riding, mountain biking, nature study, wildlife viewing, and picnicking. The canyon’s past is ever-present, though. Visitors can hike along the same trail—experiencing, perhaps, some of the same feelings as the miners—and stand on the rocky benches above stunning views of the canyon floor, much like the Chelan and Okanagans who defended the canyon over 150 years ago.