With the completion of The Dalles Dam in 1957, Celilo Falls, a sacred fishing area essential to the spirit and subsistence of native people was inundated with water and erased from the Columbia. For the tribes that depended on this fishing site, the loss was so painful that they could not bring themselves to look upon the rapids tamed.
In a meager fashion I identify with the heartbreak native people experienced as they watched the world’s most productive salmon and steelhead system and a way of life disappear. Free flowing rivers teeming with wild fish have not been a part of my memory, but in my time as a fly-fishermen I have gained a deep connection with the rivers of the Pacific Northwest and the species that inhabit them. I too have sacred fishing grounds essential to my spirit. The most revered space is just beyond a brawling rapid on the lower Deschutes where I landed my first steelhead on a swung fly. To the Northeast, I have more sacred water and memories. A deep run below a decrepit bridge where I cast disheartened after failing chemistry and caught three steelhead. A gentle bend in the Clearwater where I first kissed a woman I would come to love. Most importantly, a technical float in a coastal rainforest where my father came to appreciate my skill as an oarsman and experience the rivers restorative power. When I look on these sacred places and consider that in my lifetime, they may not have the flows to support fish or could be desecrated by mining operations and pipelines I become profoundly discouraged.