Washington state was almost part of Canada

It probably wouldn't have been called Washington though 😅

Did you know that the Pacific Northwest was once all part of a huge piece of land collectively known as Oregon Country (or the Columbia District if you were British at the time)? It’s true! From British Columbia in the far north, through modern Washington and Oregon and east into Idaho with bits of Montana and Wyoming, the whole region was one collective entity. Neither of which were controlled by the United States or Great Britain (or Spain or Russia or Mexico for that matter). This is despite the fact that both British and American settlers began pouring into the region. And while today the border between the United States and Canada (then British Canada) is set in stone at the 49th parallel north, it wasn’t always destined to be this way. In fact, there was a very real chance this entire region could have become part of Canada instead.

And speaking of the Pacific Northwest, I have a fun video about how Washington surpassed Oregon despite being the younger state and territory of the region.

But back to Oregon Country… how did it become American and, more importantly, how close was it to becoming part of British Canada instead of the United States? Let’s go back in time!

The great game of the West

In the early 19th century, four countries laid claim to the Oregon Country: Spain, Russia, Great Britain, and the United States. But by the 1820s, Spain and Russia had ceded their claims, leaving the two English-speaking powers in a tense geopolitical standoff. Mexico, for its part, never actually claimed Oregon or the Oregon country despite the claim by its previous colonial overseer: Spain.

With only two suitors, you might think that a decision would be relatively easy to negotiate a clean division of the land, right? Especially two countries that, at this point, were well acquainted with divvying up land. They even settled on a northern boundary for most of North America: the 49th parallel. But it simply wouldn’t be that easy. Both countries wanted and claimed the entirety of the Oregon Country.

So, unable to agree on a boundary, they instead signed the Treaty of 1818, which established a policy of “joint occupation.” This was less a friendly agreement to share and more a decision to postpone an inevitable conflict. Basically, citizens from both countries were free to settle and trade anywhere in the territory, which stretched from the 42nd parallel (California’s northern border) to 54°40’ (Alaska’s southern border).

But for the first two decades of this arrangement, the “joint” part was pure fiction. In fact, neither country really held dominion over the land. Instead, the region was controlled by a single entity: the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC). This was not just a fur-trading business, it was a powerful, continent-spanning corporation that acted as the de facto government of the wilderness. And it was 100% pure British.

The HBC’s western headquarters, Fort Vancouver (which is located not where Vancouver, BC is today, but rather in Vancouver, Washington near Portland, Oregon) was the undisputed capital of the Pacific Northwest. From this strategic post, located on the north bank of the Columbia River, the company’s chief factor, John McLoughlin, managed a commercial empire that stretched from the Rockies to the Pacific. The British, represented by the HBC, were firmly in control. Their plan was simple: when the time came to draw a border, they would insist on the Columbia River as the natural boundary, securing the fertile lands to the north, including the prized deep-water ports of the Puget Sound.

A flood of settlers into Oregon

Watch out for dysentery!

The British strategy had one fatal flaw: it was based on the region remaining a sparsely populated fur-trading preserve. The United States, however, had a different idea, driven by the now infamous ideology of “Manifest Destiny” or the belief that the country was fated by divine will to expand to the Pacific. Remember, at this time, the United States didn’t have sovereignty over California either. That would come later.

In the early 1840s, the trickle of American pioneers, mountain men, and missionaries turned into a flood. The Oregon Trail opened, and thousands of settlers in covered wagons began a perilous 2,000-mile journey west. But they weren’t trappers interested in cooperating with the Hudson’s Bay Company, they were farmers seeking land.

These settlers poured into Oregon’s fertile Willamette Valley, south of the Columbia River. By 1845, more than 5,000 Americans had settled there, forming their own provisional government and outnumbering the British subjects in the entire territory by a huge margin. The “facts on the ground” had changed. The US now had a powerful population center in the heart of the disputed land.

This demographic shift created a crisis. In the 1844 presidential election, candidate James K. Polk ran on the aggressive slogan “Fifty-Four Forty or Fight!” which was a direct threat to claim the entire territory of Oregon Country up to the Alaskan border, an act that would have meant certain war with Britain.

British Columbia’s southern extension

The crisis, of course, was resolved by the Oregon Treaty of 1846. Both sides, it turned out, were bluffing. The United States was on the verge of war with Mexico and couldn’t afford to fight the British Empire simultaneously. Great Britain, for its part, was preoccupied with domestic issues and was unwilling to start a costly war with its most important trading partner over a distant wilderness.

So they compromised. The border was set at the 49th parallel (which was the painfully obvious solution), but Britain was granted one major concession: it would retain all of Vancouver Island. The Hudson’s Bay Company, seeing the writing on the wall, had already moved its headquarters from Fort Vancouver to the newly established Fort Victoria.

But this outcome was far from guaranteed. Two key factors could have easily tilted the entire region into British hands.

First, what if the Hudson’s Bay Company had encouraged settlement like the Americans? The company’s governor, George Simpson, had actively discouraged British subjects from farming, wanting to protect the fur trade instead. In the 1820s and 1830s, had he promoted and subsidized the migration of thousands of British, Scottish, and Irish settlers to the lands north of the Columbia, the demographic balance would have been entirely different. When the Americans arrived in the Willamette Valley, they would have been met by an equally strong British population in modern-day Washington. The British claim to the Columbia River as the border would have been unassailable.

Second, what if Britain had been more aggressive? The Royal Navy was the most powerful in the world. Had the British government been less distracted in 1846 and decided to call Polk’s bluff, they could have sailed warships into the Puget Sound and the Columbia River. The United States, already committing its army to the south, would have been forced to back down. The British demand for the Columbia River border would have been met, and the map of North America would have been permanently redrawn.

In this timeline, the great timber and technology hubs of Seattle and Tacoma, the agricultural centers of eastern Washington, and probably even the port of Portland (or at least its northern bank) would have been part of the Colony of British Columbia. And then, when Canada was formed in 1867, this vast, resource-rich territory would have become its westernmost (and southernmost) province, profoundly changing the economic and cultural destiny of a continent.

The United States and Canada are a constant mix of “what if” questions. It’s actually kind of amazing both became as “whole” as they did. But this one, in particular, is one really feels like it was one decision from the British at the time that cost them what would become Washington state.