Page 11
M arch 2, 2 0 0 6
Spilysy T y m o o , W ^ rm Springs, O re go n
Author reflects on the flooding of Celilo Falls
(The following article recently ap
peared on the website www.common-
place.org. The site is sponsored bj the
American A ntiquarian Society in as
sociation with Florida State Univer
sity.)
By George Rohrbacher
K ancher and author
G oldendale, W ash
The area surrounding Celilo
Falls on the Columbia River is
arguably the longest continually
o ccu p ied place in N o rth
America. This is owing to one
simple fact: Celilo Falls was once
the greatest fishing site on planet
Earth.
The annual fish runs o f the
Columbia River, estimated at 15
to 20 million salmon, had sup
ported an essential human indus
try long pre-dating the arrival o f
Columbus in the Western Hemi
sphere.
All o f this is now gone. One
Sunday a fte rn o o n in M arch
1957 Celilo Falls and the ancient
traditions o f its fishing culture
were drowned - smothered un
d er the b ack w aters o f The
Dalles Dam.
Celilo Falls, its destruction,
and the afterm ath are among
the most important and under-
appreciated subtexts o f K en
Kesey’s classic 1962 novel One
F lew O ver The C uckoo’s N est.
Kesey was a native Oregonian.
He planned and wrote the novel
that defined the ’60s as this his
toric drama at Celilo Falls played
out.
Celilo Falls was the economic
and spiritual center o f the In
dian world in the Pacific N orth
west.
T he n a rra to r o f K e s e y ’s
novel is C h ief Bromden. The
mute giant, “C hief Broom ” as
he’s sometimes called, serves as
a haunting embodiment o f the
Native peoples o f the Colum
bia Plateau who had just lost the
center o f their ancient salmon-
based culture. Celilo Falls had
ju st been ripped fro m their
heart.
This important theme is com
pletely missing in the film ver
sion o f One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s
N est , starring Jack Nicholson.
T hat is perhaps w hy so few
Am ericans appreciate the his
torical significance o f C h ie f
Bromden.
I first got interested in this
lost world o f Celilo Falls in 1976
when my wife and I bought a
cattle ranch on the breaks o f
the Klickitat River, in south-cen
tra l W ash in g to n State. O u r
ranch sits w h ere the tim ber
meets the desert in the Pacific
Northwest, a peninsula o f land
surrounded on three sides by
one-thousand-foot-deep can
yons, sixteen miles upstream
from the Columbia River.
O n m y firs t trip to the
Klickitat County Courthouse, I
was waiting to purchase license
tabs for my pickup truck when
I noticed a huge black-and-white
framed photo o f Indians stand
ing before a huge waterfall pull
ing mounds o f salmon from the
frothing river. They used large
hoop nets mounted on handles
fifteen to 20 feet long. “W here’s
that?” I asked, pointing to the
picture. “That was Celilo Falls...”
the lady behind the counter an
swered in a voice o f infinite sad
ness. This was for me the begin
ning o f a 30-year fascination
with an enigma, Celilo Falls.
Celilo Falls was the economic
and spiritual center o f the In
dian world in the Pacific N orth
west. A t Celilo, the churning
waters o f the Columbia slowed,
confused, and blinded the mi
grating salmon so that the River
People might easily catch them.
T he h o t, p a rch in g sum m er
winds at Celilo were perfect for
drying and preserving a portion
o f the river’s bounty fo r the
co m in g w in te r. T his dried
salm on, know n as ch-lai, was
pounded into a fine powder and
tightly packed into baskets. It
served as a kind o f currency in
a va st region o f the W est,
stretching from Montana, Idaho,
and Wyoming to northern Cali
fornia and Vancouver Island.
In its final years, after many
decades o f declining fish runs,
Celilo still produced two and a
half million pounds o f salmon
annually. The salmon runs drew
N ative A m erican s fro m all
across the West to help with the
fishing at the falls.
Before it was eclipsed by the
Hudson Bay Com pany’s Fort
Vancouver in 1824, Celilo Falls
was the hub o f trade fo r the
entire Pacific Northwest region.
Natives came there to trade for
many things other than salmon,
in clu d in g seashells, b u ffa lo
robes, and obsidian. They also
gam bled in ce ssan tly th ere,
throwing the bones in the popu
lar “stick game” that had been
played at the falls for thousands
o f years.
The H orseshoe Falls, the
m ost p h o to g rap h ed part o f
Celilo Falls, was close to the
Oregon shore. Until its inunda
tion, Celilo Falls was by far the
biggest tourist attraction in the
state.
The Columbia carries more
water to the Pacific than all the
other rivers in Washington, O r
egon, and California combined.
Its maximum recorded flow was
1.25 million cubic feet per sec
ond. This occurred during the
devastating flood o f 1894. But
that was a mere trickle compared
to any o f the Ice Age Bretz
Floods that came roaring down
the Columbia Gorge at ninety
miles per hour and were over
one thousand feet deep.
Fifteen to twenty-five thou
sand years ago, a series o f mas
sive ice dams impounded much
o f the river’s enormous ru n -off
east o f the Rocky Mountains,
turning most o f eastern M on
tana into a lake.
The geologic evidence shows
that those ice dams broke re
peatedly, releasing vast walls o f
water into the open flatlands o f
eastern Washington. From the
saturated plains, the floodwaters
traveled down to the Columbia
Gorge, which they filled with a
vast west-rushing torrent. From
the Columbia’s headwaters to the
Pacific, the floods erased all liv
ing things in their path.
Economics of the falls
Economics were the central
reason why Indians had occu
pied the falls from time imme
morial. The falls was one o f the
most productive food-gathering
sites on the planet. Every year,
as many as 20 million salmon
(som e research ers say even
more) were drawn inexorably up
the Columbia River to spawn
and die in the gravel bars o f
their birth.
O n O c to b e r 1 7 , 1 8 0 5 ,
M eriw ether L ew is’s co -co m
mander William Clark observed
th a t “ the n u m b er o f dead
Salmon on the Shores & float
ing in the river is incrediable to
Say...T he Waters o f this river
is Clear, and a Salmon may be
Seen at the deabth o f 15 or 20
feet.”
The peoples o f the Colum
bia steadfastly believed that
these returning fish were gifts
from the Creator, gifts o f the
earth , g ifts th at sh o u ld be
treated with both reverence and
respect. For, in coming back to
spawn, those fish had also come
home to feed the River People;
the salmon returned each year
to Chi wana (the big river) so that
the People might live.
The biggest o f the Colum
bia R iver salm on, the “June
hog”, weighed in at o ve r 50
pounds. It had evolved to make
a nearly on e-th ou san d -m ile,
upriver journey from the ocean
Fishermen at Celilo.
to the mountain streams o f the
Canadian Rockies. The June
hogs disappeared from the face
o f the earth after the G rand
Coulee Dam was constructed in
the late 1930s. The dam lacked
a fish ladder that would have
allowed them to continue their
millennia-old migration upriver.
Today, along with the four
teen large hydroelectric dams on
the main stem o f the Colum
bia, there are 250 other dams
at various sites throughout the
drainage system. H alf o f the
salmon’s historic range has been
permanently blocked by dams.
Contact with non-Natives
The drowning o f Celilo Falls
in 1957 was simply the m ost
recent and decisive conflict the
Columbia River Indians have
had with the whites.
Their contact with European-
based societies began about fif
teen years prior to Captain Rob
ert Gray’s 1792 discovery o f the
Columbia. Around 1775, small
pox from Russian sealers and fur
traders had worked its way from
Vancouver Island down the Pa
cific coast - long before the first
physical contact — decimating
Native populations on the coast
and up the river.
This Old World plague came
a full 30 years before the ap
pearance o f Lewis and Clark,
whose arrival the River People
had long prophesied.
In late O cto b er o f 18 0 5 ,
when Lewis and Clark stopped
to portage around Celilo Falls
to the Long Narrows just below
them, they found the salmon
fishery recently finished for the
year and emptied o f m ost o f
its native residents. Left behind
were countless vermin, living in
the waste left from the manu
fa ctu re o f p o u n d ed dried
salmon.
According to Captain William
Clark, by the time the Corps o f
D isco very landed below the
falls, the party was “covered
with flees which were So thick
amoungst the Straw and fish
Skins at the upper part o f the
portage at which place the na
tives had C am ped n o t long
Since; that every man o f the
party was obliged to Strip na
ked dureing the time o f takeing
over the canoes, that they might
have the opportunity o f brush
ing the flees o f their legs and
bodies.”
In just one stack, Lewis and
Clark counted 107 finely woven
baskets containing thousands o f
pounds o f dried, powdered fish.
The cache had been left unat
tended while most o f the people
o f the falls were o ff on their
annual autumn trip to the huck
le b erry fields in the nearby
mountains.
The journals o f Lewis arid
Clark describe in close detail the
Native fishing at Celilo Falls:
Oct 22 1805...the waters [of
the fa lls] is divided into several
narrow chanels which pass through
a hard black rock forming Islands
o f rocks at this Stage o f the wa
ter, on those Islands o f rocks as
well as at and about their Lodges
I observe great numbers o f Stacks
o f p ou n ded Salmon (butifully)
neetlypreserved in the following man
ner, ie after Sujfiently Dried it is
pounded between two Stones fine,
and p u t into a speces o f basket
neatly made o f grass and rushes
o f better than two fe e t long and
one foot in Diamiter, which basket
is lined with the Skins o f Salmon
Stretched and dried fo r this p u r
pose, in this it is pressed down as
hard as is possible, when fu ll they
Secure the open part with fish Skins
across which they fasten tho’ the
loops o f the basket that part very
Securely, and then on a Dry Situ
ation they Set those baskets the
C orded p a rt up, their common
Custom is to Set 7 as close as they
can Stand and 5 on top o f them,
and secure them with mats which is
raped around them and made fa st
with cords and Covered also with
mats, those 12 baskets o f from 90
to 100 w. each (basket) form a
stack, thus preserved those fish may
be kept Sound and Sweet Several
years, as those people inform me,
Great quantities as they inform us
are Sold to the whites people who
visit the mouth o f this river as well
as to the nativs below.
to extinguish most Native land
claims west of the Cascades and
to cede to the Indians large res
ervations in the dry and almost
worthless interior.
Many of the River Indians
refused to leave for the reser
vations.
The WyAm people of Celilo
F alls w ere am ong the m ost
stea d fa st o f them . C h ie f
Tommy T hom pson, the last
salmon chief at Celilo Village,
always kept with him in a beaded
deerskin pouch the treaty, which
had been signed by his uncle
Stockedy, granting the WyAms
uncontested rights to fish at
Celilo.
Even though their treaty cre
ated a large new reservation,
W arm S p rin gs, the W yA m s
stayed on the river and contin
ued to fish in the old way, even
as the A rm y Corps o f E ngi
neers built The Dalles Dam.
The novel
In Ken K esey’s version of
the loss o f Celilo Falls, Chief
Bromden is the son of the chief
who sold out the falls, a man
who - in Kesey’s fictional ren
dering — becomes smaller and
smaller as his white wife grows
bigger and bigger.
About two-thirds of the way
into the novel, Bromden’s friend,
the defiant Randal McMurphy,
asks Chief Bromden about his
father and about the monumen
tal forces working to make him
little:
The numerous baskets of ch-
lai that Lewis and Clark saw rep
resented only a portion of what
“... they beat him up in the al
was produced during the six-
month fishing season, which leys, and I told him that they
began in A pril and ended in wanted to make him see what he
October. How many more tons had in store fo r him only worse i f
of dried fish had already been he didn’t sign the papers giving ev
traded away and carried into the erything to the government. ”
hinterlands no one knows.
“What did they want him to
On their return journey the give to the government?”
follow ing spring, Lew is and
“Fverything. The tribe, the vil
Clark again passed by Celilo lage, the fa lls... ”
Falls. The fishing season had
‘Now I remember; you’re talk
barely begun. Clark observed ing about the falls where the Indi
“all of those articles [the River ans used to spear salmon — long
People] precure from other na time ago. Yeah. But the way I re
tions who visit them for the member it the tribe got paid some
purpose o f exchanging those huge amount. ”
articles for their pounded fish
“That’s what I said to him. He
o f w hich they prepare great said, What canyon pay fo r the way
quantities. This is the Great Mart a man lives? He said, What can
of all this Country.”
you pay fo r what a man is? They
The modern Indian Nations didn’t understand. N ot even the
on the Columbia Plateau - the tribe. They stood out in fron t o f
tribes of the Warm Springs Res our door all holding those checks
ervatio n , the Y akam as, Nez and they wanted him to tell them
Perce and Umatillas — are com what to do now. They kept asking
prised of descendents of the far him to invest fo r them, or tell them
more numerous bands who once where to go, or to buy a farm. But
inhabited the Columbia Plateau. he was too little anymore. And he
Epidemics, tens of thousands of was too drunk, too. The Combine
setders pouring over the Oregon had whipped him. It beats every
Trail, and U.S. government poli body. It’l l beat you, too.”
cies did their best to shatter the
Native peoples’ traditional ways Refusal to sell
of life. In the Treaty of 1854,
Ken Kesey got many, many
signed at Port Elliot in Puget things right in this defining novel
Sound, and then the Treaty of o f the ’60s, but the C hief of
1855, signed at Walla Walla, the the Falls selling out to the gov
Territorial governments set out ernment definitely was not one
o f them.
Yes, the government paid $26
million for Celilo Falls. This was
the amount its actuarial accoun
tants calculated the fishing re
sources’ amortized value to be,
figuring salmon at five cents per
pound. And it was a huge for
tune at the time. But the money
did not go to C h ief Tommy
T h o m p so n o f the W yA m
people, the keeper o f Celilo
Falls.
It went instead to the reser
vation tribes who still came an
nually to the falls for the fish
ing but had left the life on the
river years earlier.
C h ie f T h om p so n had re
fused to sell. For years before
the dam was built, the A rm y
Corps o f Engineers would ap
proach him, and every year he
refused to take their money. He
said, time and again, fu rth er
negotiations were useless. But in
the end, the government went
around him.
They used the power o f emi
nent domain, condemning the
falls in the courts. The govern
ment went ahead and built its
dam anyway.
Even after The Dalles Dam
was built, C hief Thom pson still
refused to take any m oney for
Celilo. In addition, unlike the
fic tio n a l c h a ra c te r, C h ie f
Tommy was not m arried to a
w hite w om an, and he didn’t
drink h im self in to o b liv io n ,
either. The real C h ief Tommy
Thom pson was a m ost excep
tional hum an being, a cross
between Jim Thorpe and the
Pope.
Tall, handsom e, and ath
letic, a fam ed sw im m er and
boatman in his youth, he was
m arried to as many as seven
w om en at one time but never
to a w hite w om an; it w ou ld
have been unthinkable. C hief
Tommy Thom pson was a holy
man. His ancient religion was
th a t o f th e W aa sh at , the
drums.
Chief Tommy was 102 years
old when the falls were drowned.
He had begun serving as salmon
chief at Celilo Village in 1875,
when he was but twenty, after
the death o f the previous chief,
his uncle Stocketly, w ho had
been killed by friendly fire while
serving as a scout for the U.S.
Army.
Tom m y was salm on ch ie f
o f Celilo Falls fo r the next 85
years, m aking him , w ith o u t
m uch question, the longest-
s e rv in g p u b lic o ff ic ia l in
A m e ric a n h is to ry . C h ie f
Tom m y T h om pson was also
the m ost revered man on the
river, the last true chief.
The death o f Celilo Falls in
1957 foreshadowed the death
o f Chief Thompson two years
later, at age 10 4 . The R iver
People believe he died o f a bro
ken heart.
Slipping now from memory,
as the people w ho fished at
Celilo Falls pass from this life,
the history o f the falls is in dan
ger o f disappearing. Celilo Falls
and the deep w ell o f culture
there is so far below the radar
screen o f the dominant white
society that a search o f tw o
popular encyclopedias - The
O n-line Colum bia Encyclopedia
and the last print edition o f the
Encyclopaedia Britannica — reveals
no entry under the heading o f
“Celilo Falls.” A trip to Google,
thankfully, is far more produc
tive.
W ith our m odern engineer
ing skills in the 1950s, we cer
tainly could have done som e
thing very different. We could
have im proved the ship canal
that had been built around the
falls in the early 1900s, and we
could have saved Celilo Falls
and the rich life that w ent with
it. I f o n ly w e had p u t o u r
minds to it.