River of Memory: The Everlasting Columbia

River of Memory—The Everlasting Columbia is a non-fiction book edited by William D. Layman. Comprising photographs, illustrations, and quotations from the work of poets, novelists, and other writers, River of Memory traces the full length of the Columbia River from its source in the Canadian Rockies to the Oregon Pacific coast. The coffee-table-sized book (9” x 11” in softcover) is accompanied by a CD recording. This package is a record of a museum exhibition of the same name, originally hosted by the Wenatchee Valley Museum & Cultural Centre, Washington, which toured museums throughout Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia from 2006 through 2008.

The River of Memory exhibition began life due to renewed attention among academics and ecologists to the effects of the Dalles Dam, whose construction inundated Celilo Falls, with catastrophic effects for the river’s salmon population and the Native peoples who fished it. For his work on the exhibition (including the book River of Memory), William D. Layman was awarded the James B. Castles Award from the Center for Columbia River History.

For this reason, the bulk of the book’s photographs depict the river before the construction of its several dams (most famous is the Grand Coulee Dam, built in the 1930s and 40s). There are just over ninety photographs, the earliest dating from the 1880s, and almost all from before 1950. The photographs are in black-and-white, presented on a black background. Some were taken by famous local photographers like Carleton Watkins; others were taken by unknown artists and travelers. Few of the photographs show people: instead, the river and its surrounding landscape are the centerpiece.



The book is divided into four sections, arranged according to the river’s course, beginning with the mouth of the Columbia and proceeding upstream along the river’s 1,243-mile course to its mountain source. A contemporary map shows the exact location at which each photograph was taken. Each photo is also labeled with a “milepost” indicating how far it is from the river’s source. The book’s upstream direction-of-travel mirrors that of the river’s salmon, who swim from the Pacific to the Columbia’s headwaters in Columbia Lake. The salmon are introduced in the book’s opening text and recur in later illustrations.

The first section of the book covers the two hundred-mile stretch of the Columbia from its mouth to Celilo Falls. The second proceeds from the Falls to the junction with Snake River (another 123 miles). Section three follows the river as far as the International Boundary with Canada (401 miles), and the final section covers the nearly five hundred-mile Canadian stretch of the river.

Each section contains detailed illustrations of the fish that live in each stretch of the river, hand-drawn by Joseph Tomelleri and David McConnell. The male and female of each fish species are identified, and every species is included, from four-inch tiddlers like the torrent sculpin to the twenty-foot sturgeon (and, of course, the river’s famous salmon).



The drawings and photographs are annotated by two editors: William Layman in the American sections, and by author and activist Eileen Delehanty Pearkes in the final Canadian section. Alongside their editorial observations are excerpts from a wide range of writers. Many travel writers who have visited the Columbia region are featured, including its earliest European explorers, alongside Native American and First Nations writers (the river passes through the former territories of more than a dozen Native peoples and forms a boundary to two present-day Reservations), naturalists, and contemporary and historical poets.

These writings introduce the people who have lived along the Columbia and their stories, as well as the flora and fauna of the region. They are densely informative but artistically curated.

These writings (especially alongside the historical photographs) establish that the book is intended as an elegy for the pre-dam river, rather than as a history of its use by humans. Little mention is made of the river’s hydroelectric power stations, or of the loss of its falls and rapids. The few mentions of the river’s contemporary appearance tend to the melancholic. Quietly, the book poses the question of what was lost in the taming of the river and the industrialization of its surrounding landscape. Its final words are a poem by Canadian poet Peter Christensen: “Somewhere in the Heavens” is about the headwaters of the Columbia.



River of Memory was reviewed primarily by the community of scholars studying the Columbia and its history, but these reviewers warmly recommended the book to general readers: “The book will be an important purchase for libraries interested in developing their Pacific Northwest collections and for anyone interested in rivers and humans and how they influence each other. Aside from its historical value, this book can be appreciated for the photographs, the poetry, and the accounts of the personal impact of this powerful natural resource” (Electronic Green Journal).