Canyon Creek Chalets is your source for Mt. Baker lodging and cabin rentals. Each home is self catered and is a fully equipped vacation rental located just 35 minutes from the Mt. Baker Ski Area and minutes away from the Mount Baker Recreation Area.
Each exceptionally clean cedar chalet comes complete with comfortable furnishings, quality bed and bath linens, kitchen utensils, TV/DVD, DVD movie collection, and outdoor hot tub. To see a full listing of amenities click here.
Not your ordinary vacation lodging!!
A Little History
Whatcom County’s most spectacular natural attraction is the glacier-covered volcano called Mount Baker. The mountain rises 10,778 feet above sea level in the center of the Mt. Baker Wilderness area. It is part of the North Cascades Mountain Range, which was formed when the Strait of Juan de Fuca tectonic plate pushed up underneath the North American plate eons ago.
Mount Baker was created from layers of mud, cinder and lava that hardened and were carved into jagged cliffs by giant glaciers during the Ice Age. Though perpetually covered in snow and ice, it is the second most active volcano in the Cascade Range, the U.S. Forest Service reports. Mount St. Helens is the first.
In 1999, Mt. Baker set the new world’s record for the most snowfall ever measured in a single season– 1,140 inches (2,895.6 centimeters)!
Mt. Baker has worn several appellations in its 400,000 years. Long before white settlers came, Nooksack Indians called it quck-sman-ik, meaning “white mountain.” The Lummi Indians near Bellingham Bay called it Kulshan, meaning “broken off.” Presumably, they were referring to the frequent volcanic activity.
English explorer Captain George Vancouver rededicated the mountain while charting the region in 1792. He named it for Lt. Joseph Baker, a young officer in his command who spotted the peak while their sloop “Discovery” was sailing off the coast of Washington near Dungeness Bay.
The last 28 miles of the 58-mile long Mt. Baker Highway lie within the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest . Set aside as part of the Washington Forest Reserve in 1897, its name was changed to Mt. Baker National Forest in 1924. In 1974, Mt. Baker National Forest and a northern section of the Snoqualmie National Forest were combined. These lands fall under the jurisdiction of the Mount Baker Ranger District and total 534,334 acres.
Congress designated another 117,900 acres adjacent to the national forest lands as Mount Baker Wilderness in 1984. The Wilderness areas surround the volcanic dome of Mt. Baker and are accessible by more than 50 miles of trails, but no roads. Development is prohibited here, and regulations apply to use. The U.S. Forest Service’s motto for recreational users is ‘Walk softly, take only photographs and leave only footprints.”
Miners blazed many of the 100 miles of hiking trails in the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. From 1858 on, hordes of fortune hunters passed through Whatcom County on their way to the Fraser River gold strike in British Columbia. A few also scoured Mt. Baker’s creeks and foothills.
On August 23, 1897, three men from the border town of Sumas discovered flecks of gold “as large as peas” in what was to become the largest gold strike in the history of the Mount Baker Mining District. They were led by Jack Post, an old “sourdough” who had prospected the North Fork area for 30 years. He was accompanied by lawyer Russ Lambert and logger Lyman G. Van Valkenburg. They found their “Lone Jack” mother lode in an outcropping of quartz on Bear Mountain, north of Twin Lakes. The ore Lambert brought into Sumas was assayed at $10,750 per ton!
Overnight, the prospectors’ camp at Twin Lakes was surrounded by tents. The site soon grew into a mining camp called Union City with a population of 300 to 500. In 1898, miners built cabins and founded the town of Shuksan (Hwy. Mile 46). By that spring, 2,000 men had staked nearly 1,000 mineral claims.
On Nov. 27, 1897, Post, Lambert and Van Valkenburg sold their Lone Jack claims to a Portland, Ore., investment syndicate for $100,000. The company rapidly developed a mine, improving roads to bring in machinery. The mine was destroyed by fire in 1907, then rebuilt and operated until it collapsed under a snow slide. Between 1902 and 1925, it produced at least $550,000 in gold. Operations resumed at the Lone Jack Mine in 1980, and 50 tons of concentrated ore are extracted each year.
The Mt. Baker Gold Rush continued in the 1920s. The second biggest strike was at the Boundary Red Mountain Gold Mine. About $1.5 million in minerals, mostly gold, were excavated from 1913 to 1946. However, most claims amounted to little. Avalanches and fires demolished hastily built mines and cabins. In all, $25 million in gold was taken from the region.
