Great River of the West

In the Pacific Northwest, the river of dominance is the Columbia, and in ways both profound and mundane its history is the history of the region. In Great River of the West historians and anthropologists consider a range of topics about the river, from Indian rock art, Chinook Jargon, and ethnobotany on the Columbia to literary and family history, the creation of an engineered river, and the inherent mythic power of place.

Since first contact between Euroamericans and native peoples during the late eighteenth century; the river's history has been characterized by dramatic demographic, social, and economic changes. The remarkable essays in Great River of the West investigate these changes by highlighting important episodes in the history of the river. Readers meet mariners who challenge the Columbia River bar, a family torn by insanity, native people who preserve fishing traditions, and dam-builders who radically change the Columbia. This is a book that asks a series of related questions, probing what the Columbia has meant to human communities, how people have used the river for thefr own purposes, what humans have done to alter the river, and how the river has shaped the region.

William Lang is professor of history at Portland State University and director of the Center for Columbia River History. Robert Carriker is professor of history at Gonzaga University, Spokane. Other contributors include Richard W. Etulain, Eugene S. Hunn, William D. Layman, Patricia Nelson Limerick, James P. Ronda, Lillian Schlissel, and Henry Zenk.