Editor’s note: The following is an edited excerpt from the introduction to the new book “Big River: Resilience and Renewal in the Columbia Basin,” by Eileen Delehanty Pearkes and David Moskowitz (June 2024, $39.95, Braided River/Mountaineers Books).
DAY AND NIGHT, the Big River — also known as the Columbia River — shoots an enormous volume of water out of the West Coast of the North American continent, a freshwater arrow running headlong into the swelling Pacific Ocean. There, it is swept up and carried back inland to begin again as rain and snow, setting the stage on which the plants, wildlife and humans build their lives in this watershed.
Where, precisely, does the story of this magical river begin?
In reality, the start of any river, especially one as sprawling and complex as the Big River, can be defined in numerous ways. Wherever moisture falls upon the land is a starting point, each with its own unique contribution to one of the most ecologically diverse regions of North America.
No matter where you begin, it’s an awesome journey. The river touches the lives of millions of people, both within and far beyond the boundaries of the watershed, sometimes in ways we know and love and at other times in ways we are completely oblivious to.
This vast richness and diversity have defined my own journey to explore and document the watershed. Over the course of capturing photographs for this book, I have found myself taking pictures of desert wildlife one day, dam operators navigating huge barges down the Snake River the next, and people fishing for salmon on a rainforest-shrouded tributary the next.
Two days after eating lunch on the banks of a river that begins in the arid mountains of Central Idaho, I was trekking across ancient ice atop some of the highest peaks of Canada. Driven by logistics, my schedule for this project was exhausting at times but in retrospect also reflected perfectly the task at hand — how to create, in a collection of images, a snapshot of a place of infinite complexity at a finite and singular moment in time.
The idea of a river might conjure an image of a fairly predictable linear flow of water down an existing course. A river’s watershed, however, is another thing entirely. It encompasses myriad hydrological, ecological, geological and cultural processes, activities and characters, all going about their business simultaneously in frenetic spasms of interaction.
The ecological, cultural and economic value of the Big River’s watershed is immense. The wrangling over who benefits from, controls or gets access to this value has been going on for centuries. In our generation, however, we are reaching a new inflection point as the dominant settler-colonial culture comes to terms with the existing unsustainable nature of its relationship with the watershed while Indigenous nations rebound and renew their efforts to steward their territories.
Over time, this river has been graced with many names. Indeed, given that dozens of Indigenous languages and dialects are spoken within the boundaries of the river’s watershed, this should not be surprising. Many of the Indigenous names for parts of the river reflect the character of a specific section of the river included within the territory of a particular group.
The Sinixt speak nslxcin, or “people’s speech,” an Interior Salish language of several distinct tribes who traditionally inhabited the Columbia, Okanagan, Sanpoil, Pend d’Oreille and Methow river basins. They refer to an important place on the river where they gathered to fish as Sxnitk, which translates to “roaring or noisy waters,” a place known colonially as Kettle Falls. Probably the most ubiquitous name used by Indigenous people in reference to the entire river translates to “Big River.”
Interacting with Indigenous people fishing along the river today, you often hear the river referred to as just “the River” or “the Big River.” In my own quest to understand this river, it was the name “Big River” that captured the magnitude and importance of this river system and all contained within it.
