Sumas, Washington, located on the U.S. /Canadian boundary.  Sumas (pronounced Soo’mass) means “land without trees”.  Although lake and swamp once covered most of the area there was also a considerable area that because of natural flooding was a wide open grassland.  What has long been known as the Sumas Valley terminated on the banks of the Fraser River, some seventeen miles to the north in British Columbia, Canada.  At the south end  this valley merges with the Nooksack River.  A slight rise in the valley floor between the two rivers formed a natural drainage division allowing dense forest growth on the mountains.  Since all of the valley was subject to annual floods from the Fraser River the growth of trees was discouraged and created  a vast grassland.