[2][3] He was the dominant power from Whidbey Island to Snoqualmie Pass, between what is today British Columbia and King County, Washington[4] According to historian Bill Speidel, his was the major Indian power on Puget Sound, in no small part due to control of Snoqualmie Pass and therefore the profitable trade between the tribes on either side.

Patkanim first gained notoriety among American settlers by arranging a meeting on Whidbey Island in 1848, of 8,000 Puget Sound Indians to discuss the rising threat of white colonists.

[6] As Hubert Howe Bancroft recounted: Patkanim then opened the conference by a speech, in which he urged that if the Americans were allowed to settle among them they would soon become numerous, and would carry off their people in large fire-ships to a distant country on which the sun never shone, where they would be left to perish.

He argued that the few now present could easily be exterminated, which would discourage others from coming...[6]A Steilacoom band leader, Chew-see-a-kit, rejected the considered attack.

In 1854, Patkanim assisted U.S. Army Captain George McClellan (later a Civil War major general) in exploring Snoqualmie Pass as part of the Pacific Railroad Surveys.

On January 22, 1855, he signed the Treaty of Point Elliott, trading away several modern counties in exchange for a reservation near Tulalip, Washington.