Prehistory and settlement 's 1853 engraving "Night in the Canaan". No trace of the great primeval
red spruce forest remains today. Canaan Valley and surrounding areas were strongly impacted by the southward advance of glaciers some 15,000 years ago. Although the glaciers themselves did not extend this far south into the area, this climatic change resulted in a very cool, moist environment that was forest-unfriendly. Later, as the ice receded, many cold-adapted plant species remained behind and survived due to the high elevation. Soon, however, this tundra-like vegetation was largely crowded out by the growth of an extraordinarily dense
climax red spruce forest, intermixed with
balsam fir and hardwoods. The first Europeans to see Canaan Valley were likely the surveyors of the famous
Fairfax Line who crossed Canaan Mountain in 1746 under conditions of extreme difficulty. The origins of Canaan Valley's name are controversial. According to local legend, a German settler named Henry Fansler, who was migrating from the
Shenandoah Valley, viewed the valley from Cabin Mountain in April, 1748 and exclaimed "Besiehe das Land Canaan" ["Behold the Land of Canaan"] :593 However, numerous early documented accounts of the Valley (as discussed in the previous paragraph above) describe it as being just the opposite, a nightmarish landscape..."gloomy, foreboding", with extremely difficult access in the 1700s. In fact, the first documented description of the Valley only 2 years prior to Harness's supposed 1748 proclamation stated that it was so wild and forbidding that it was "sufficient to strike terror into any human or creature". Furthermore, the river emptying the Valley (now called the Blackwater) was called the River of Styx, meaning River of the Dead. This dark history, along with the Valley's cold, snowy climate and eastern Canadian-like forest and landscapes, have led some to theorize that the original name was actually "
the Canadian Valley". Fansler and his family hacked out a living on Freeman Creek in the Valley for three years before the harsh winters and poor farming potential forced them to move to the mouth of the Blackwater a few miles away. Fansler was the first Canaan settler whose name is known, although there is known to have been an earlier abortive homesteader in the 1770s or '80s who left descendants elsewhere in the county.:378 The rugged and remote "High Allegheny" region (what is now east-central West Virginia), including the Valley, was bypassed by development for many decades. As large-scale settlement occurred to its north, south and west the region remained relatively wild. In the 19th Century, the Valley was a last refuge for many of the large mammal species that were being exterminated from the eastern United States. In about 1843, for example, three
elk were killed in Canaan Valley by members of the Flanagan and Carr families, local settlers who habitually hunted there. These were likely the last elk found wild in the region that later became West Virginia. The earliest settler to make a successful and permanent livelihood in the Valley came more than 60 years after Fansler when Solomon W. Cosner began living at Fansler's old homestead in 1864. By the 1920s, the
Babcock Lumber and Boom Company had virtually exhausted its commercial prospects in the Valley. In 1923, the
West Virginia Power and Transmission Company (WVPTC, later called
Allegheny Power Systems), bought in the northern half of the Valley from Babcock with a long-range plan to construct a
hydroelectric power plant that would flood much of the Valley:212 The WVPTC was not, of course, motivated by any preservationist or environmentalist impulses, but this land purchase was decisive for the fate of the Valley and the power company proved an unwitting guardian of the natural wetlands from development. According to Michael—a
wildlife biologist with 30 years experience in the Valley—had this purchase not occurred by a public utility at a time when the scientific and environmental value of wetland was not yet recognized, the northern Valley would undoubtedly have been drained and developed by commercial and private interests in the 1950s and '60s, as happened in the southern Valley. Serious accidents, even fatal ones, were not uncommon in the logging industry in West Virginia in its heyday. A particularly noteworthy one occurred on 5 February 1924 in Canaan Valley when Babcock's Engine #4 wrecked and killed superintendent Fred V. Viering.
Recovery and development In 1920, the southern third of the Valley was included in the newly established
Monongahela National Forest, the first attempt to restore the forests that the previous generation had cut down. The logging railroads in the Valley were abandoned, then the rails were pulled up in 1925. The outside world intruded again in 1932, however, in the form of
West Virginia Route 32 which bisects the southern end of the Valley, connecting Davis to
Harman. This is the only north–south highway in the Valley and it was along this route that the later development of the 20th century occurred. Electrification came to this part of the Valley in 1938. In 1943–44, as part of the
West Virginia Maneuver Area, the
U.S. Army used the Canaan Valley area as a practice
artillery and
mortar range and maneuver area before troops were sent to
European Theater of Operations to fight in
World War II. Beginning in 1950, the
Ski Club of Washington, DC was developing ski slopes on the Valley side of Bald Knob of Cabin Mountain ==Ecology==