Would you jump at the chance to work as an interpreter-geologist-naturalist on a team that was mapping out a territorial boundary between two major nations? In 1844, the United Kingdom and the United States did not agree where the northwest boundary between Canada and the US lay. Americans took the boundary to be parallel to Alaska's southernmost border working east to the Rocky Mountains while the UK thought it was the Columbia River much further to the south. In the Oregon Treaty of 1846, they agreed to set the border at the 49th parallel and the Northwest Boundary Survey was undertaken to map out that boundary. George Gibbs recorded these field notes of his naturalist work as part of the Survey between 1857 and 1862.
Team up with other volunteers and learn more about the country through which the Northwest Boundary Survey team worked to map out the border between these two nations.
Would you jump at the chance to work as an interpreter-geologist-naturalist on a team that was mapping out a territorial boundary between two major nations? In 1844, the United Kingdom and the United States did not agree where the northwest boundary between Canada and the US lay. Americans took the boundary to be parallel to Alaska's southernmost border working east to the Rocky Mountains while the UK thought it was the Columbia River much further to the south. In the Oregon Treaty of 1846, they agreed to set the border at the 49th parallel and the Northwest Boundary Survey was undertaken to map out that boundary. George Gibbs recorded these field notes of his naturalist work as part of the Survey between 1857 and 1862.
Team up with other volunteers and learn more about the country through which the Northwest Boundary Survey team worked to map out the border between these two nations.
George Gibbs (1815-1873) was an ethnologist and expert on the language and culture of the Indians of the Pacific Northwest. A graduate of Harvard University, Gibbs moved west during the gold rush of 1848 and eventually secured the position of Collector of the Port of Astoria, Oregon Territory. From 1853 to 1855, he was a geologist and ethnologist on the Pacific Railroad Survey of the 47th and 49th parallels under the command of Isaac Stevens. In 1857, Gibbs joined the Northwest Boundary Survey and served as geologist, naturalist, and interpreter until 1862. The last decade of his life was spent in Washington, D.C., where he undertook studies of Indian languages under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution.
