10 DECEMBER 1,2012
Smoke Signals
Chuck WiDliainns' Me m the trairoches
By Ron Karten
Smoke Signal ulnf u nler
Chuck Williams, GO, is likely the
Tribe's most prolific author and
photographer.
The list of his publications and
photography shows is long and com
prehensive. Subjects include Tribal,
natural and political events of the
Columbia River ( Jorge and beyond.
He needs six pages to list all of the
Oregon and Northwest celebrations
he photographs regularly.
"He has visited celebrations and
festivals up and down the west
coast," says David Lewis, Grand
Ronde Museum Curator and Cul
tural Liaison. "He has perhaps 30
years of photos of these festivals. I
think he has the largest collection
of images of these cultural events
in the world."
Williams' 1980 book, "Bridge of
the Gods, Mountains of Fire: A
Return to the Columbia Gorge,"
an illustrated history told from
the perspectives of both his Indian
and pioneer ancestors, is arguably
the best book about the Columbia
Gorge and has long been out of
print. He has been angling for
years to find the means to publish
a second edition.
He wrote the book in the late
1970s when he had moved back to
the family property near Beacon
Rock in the Gorge on the Columbia
River to write, and also to be near
his father who was having health
issues.
"Our family had several parcels
of land in the area, some on the
river, where our mother was born
and our great-grandmother, known
as Indian Mary, (Kalliah was her
Indian name), lived," says Wil
liams' cousin, Valerie Alexander.
"It is right next to the train tracks
and was also on the trail by the
river. I heard that they used to
hear the horses brush against the
cabin walls when they came up the
trail."
"The road (that goes by the cabin
site and an orchard) is called Indian
Mary Road and the year-round wa
ter source for the refuge is Indian
Mary Creek," Williams
says.
The will to the prop
erties was very compli
cated, Alexander says,
and in order to preserve
the home site on the
river (Indian Mary's
Vancouver allotment),
the family sold it to the
Trust for Public Land.
Williams and other
members of the family,
including his cousin
and Alexander's sis
ter, Marilyn Portwood,
worked on the effort
that helped preserve
the land and ultimately
convinced Congress to
establish the area as
the Pranz Lake Nation
al Wildlife Refuge.
"Swans and wapato
(our potato) have now
returned," he says.
Williams' father,
Clyde, knew a lot of the family his
tory, Alexander says, and passed
that information on to Chuck "who
also did a lot of research and wrote
his book, recording the family his
tory along with the history of the
Gorge.
"I have checked it with many
other resources and I think his book
is still the most complete and cor
rect in existence. He helped many
of the family feel proud of their
heritage. Some had been concealing
their Indian heritage as they were
treated poorly by the white people
some of the time there."
In company with countless art
ists, Williams' talents have not
translated into personal riches. On
the contrary, today his art is push
ing him out of his home. He lives in
The Dalles in a house that was once
the Columbia Gorge Gallery, show
ing and selling his photography and
his books, together making up his
American West Archives project.
"I'm all too aware," he says, "that
Edward Curtis, the now-famous
photographer who photographed
Tumulth's oldest daughter in the
r ". t
-'14 r
i,.
mm
ill
Photos courtesy of Chuck Williams
Bella and Tomas Beal of McMinnville
ride a giant rocking horse at the
Shrewsbury Renaissance Faire in
Kings Valley. David Lewis, Grand
Ronde Museum Curator and Cultural
Liaison, said Chuck Williams has
visited celebrations and festivals
up and down the West Coast and
he thinks Williams has the largest
collection of images of these
cultural events in the world.
ri . iL FiO
Tribal Elder Chuck Williams sits on the front porch of his gallery-turned-home
in The Dalles. The house was once the Columbia Gorge Gallery where he
showed and sold his photography and his books.
Gorge, died penniless in L.A."
The gallery is now closed to the
public and the backlog of his pho
tography includes 70,000 color
slides that he has yet to review.
Williams began adding digital
photography to his collection in
2005 and he continues to photo
graph with slide film, hard as it is
getting to be found and processed.
His go-to source for slide film these
days is eBay.
His place is four blocks off the
Columbia River upriver from where
his Grand Ronde ancestors once
fished in a wide open and wild river
that spawned 100-pound salmon
before the dams went up.
"Spiritually," he says, "the Co
lumbia Gorge is our home."
His father's great-grandfather,
Chief Tumulth, signed the 1855
Grand Ronde Willamette Valley
Treaty and was later hung by then
Lt. Phil Sheridan.
Williams remembers a grade
school field trip to the Sonoma
Mission when his family moved to
Petaluma, Calif. In an early display
of his refusal to yield on matters of
conscience, Williams refused to go
into the Phil Sheridan room there.
He told the teacher about Chief
Tumulth and the hanging.
The teacher relayed the history to
Williams' mom, Bettye, as fanciful,
but the teacher was barking up the
wrong tree.
"My mom," he says, "married my
dad when it was barely legal for
a non-Indian to marry an Indian,
when you were ostracized for it.
I tell people, 'No wonder I ended
up so screwed up.' My father was
a conservative Indian who loved
technology and engineering, and
my mom was a left-wing WASP
who loved nature and art. She was
the one who mainly took me fishing
when I was a kid."
Williams took off in life as a com
bination of the two.
After graduating from high school
in 1961, Williams couldn't afford
a four-year college, so he took en
gineering classes at a community
college for a year and began work
ing full-time as a draftsmantech
nician. "My father had me doing me
chanical drawing for him since I
was a young kid," Williams says, "so
I had that skill to fall back on until
computers replaced draftsmen."
Williams worked himself into an
engineering position with college
graduates working for him at two
of the nation's premiere technol
ogy laboratories Milwaukie,
Wise-based Johnson Controls and
Richmond, Va. -based Robertshaw
Controls. For six years, three at
each company, Williams worked on
NASA and Boeing projects.
Not for the last time, the politics
got to him.
As a way to give back to the coun
try, he moved on to work through
the Peace Corps in Dominican
Republic in 1968-69 and VISTA in
El Paso, Texas, in 1969-70. After
wards, he spent six years touring
the national parks, living out of
his van and mastering the photo
graphic arts.
During that time, he visited all
of the national parks proper in the
contiguous states, plus the major
ity of other National Parks System
units, he says.
He also was named National
Parks expert for Friends of the
Earth founder David Brower, the
subject of John McPhee's book,
"Encounters with the Archdruid."
He took inspiration from Brower,
who later wrote the introduction to
Williams' Gorge book.
"He was my idol," Williams says.
"He turned the Sierra Club into
a major political force, but was
thrown out due to controversies
over finances and policy." Brower
then formed Friends of the Earth,
"which became a very effective en
vironmental group because Brower
attracted so many young, dedicated
idealists," Williams says.
"One of my main goals with
Friends of the Earth was to try to
get large samples of the country's
main ecosystems protected in na
tional parks as a genetic bank for
disappearing plants and animals,"
Williams says.
For the next few years, Williams
enjoyed a golden time. He felt he
had struck pay dirt in 1976 when
Jimmy Carter had just been elected
and Carter's Interior Secretary Ce-
See CHUCK
continued on page 11