Stop the Dams! Big Beaver vs. High Ross

This is an image of the Upper Skagit Valley during reservoir draw-down, distributed as part of the campaign to stop Seattle City Light from raising Ross Dam (“High Ross”) which would have flooded Big Beaver like the upper Skagit.

Stop the Dams! Patrick Goldsworthy writes in the Sierra Club NW chapter journal, Sept. 1969, that the new North Cascades National Park wasn’t safe from the dam builders. The article includes a map by Goldsworthy.

Big Beaver Valley Ecological Survey – First of its Kind

NCCC members Margaret and Joe Miller wrote a biological survey of Big Beaver Valley in 1971, a pioneering example of an ecological survey to demonstrate an area’s unique scientific value. Arthur Kruckeberg, professor emeritus of botany at the University of Washington and NCCC member said in The Wild Cascades, “[The Millers’] masterful account of the [Big Beaver] Valley’s biota has become a paradigm of gathering evidence in the wild to preserve a great piece of nature.”