Restoring Our Rivers
The Elwha Legacy
Indian Shaker Church Spiritual Leader Oliver “Bosco” Charles leads First Salmon Ceremony, Elwha River, 1995. From Unconquering the Last Frontier.
The removal of the Elwha River dams, beginning in 2012, has provided exciting professional opportunities, executing a dam de–construction and ecosystem restoration plan.
But it wasn’t always that simple.
The Elwha is a not a story about concrete, or sediment, soil chemistry, or cubic feet per second. It is and remains a story about people. And what matters most to us.
Behind the science is a story.
Science, Technology, Engineering and Math connect to human geography.
Aerial Photograph, Lake Mills, PHOTO : LUNDAHL, 2005, (For the National Park Service). Leica M6, 35 mm. Summicron. Fujichrome 400 Provia
The Elwha Legacy Conference begins with this premise, focusing on environmental justice, race, and gender, as portrayed in the ways we recall the past and engage the future.
The Fall 2020 On–Line Conference, presented by the Greenbelt Society, and Hunter College Dept. of Geography and Environmental Science, CUNY, brings together experts, stakeholders, and tribes from watersheds under review and consideration for restoration, to exchange knowledge and inspire students. Watch this page for our October schedule and how to participate.
Questioning “Progress”: An unfamiliar science
Beatrice Charles: “That was our way of life” from Unconquering the Last Frontier, clip.
Nothing is Impossible
I’ll never see the salmon come back– the way it was in my time. I’ll never see it again.
But I want my grandchildren and great grandchildren to see it.
Let them see what I saw. And it was plentiful.
Beatrice Charles, Elwha Klallam Elder
PHOTO Courtesy North Olympic Library System
The Elwha River Valley from Hurricane Ridge–Olympic National Park. Mamiya 7, 35 mm Panoramic. Fujichrome 100 Provia, PHOTO : LUNDAHL.
Twenty eight years ago
Conditions on the ground: A tribe without the economic resources or a natural bounty to bring about change, and an underfunded National Park fighting anti-federal, “Wise Use” groups, seemed to suggest the existing “it’s Impossible” narrative would continue for some time to come.
“When I arrived, the “Jobs vs. Owls” wars were in full swing. A spotted owl was nailed to a telephone pole outside town. What occurred during “Redwood Summer” in Mendocino, was also happening at Clayoquot Sound in Canada.
Demonstrators prevented the logging of old growth forests. In Washington State, the nearby town of Port Angeles had been a center for the logging and fishing economy.
In this modern environment lived the Klallam people.
Their villages had once extended over a wide area including most of the Olympic Peninsula. There were village sites on the Lower Elwha River, close to the ocean, or Strait, and on the upper river, in what is now Olympic National Park.”
Filmmaker Robert Lundahl
PHOTO Courtesy North Olympic Library System
Nature Does it Better
Around the world, the trend was headed the opposite way. The construction of the Three Gorges Dam in China, the Naramada Dam in India, and the Belo Monte Dam on Brazil’s Xingu River began to usher in a new era of hydro-electric energy production with unforseen impacts to communities, riparian species, and ecosystems.
In Japan, one undammed salmon river remained on Hokkaido, the northernmost island, while the Ainu of the forest and coastlines fought for fundamental rights.
Now along the Klamath, the Trinity, the Matilija, the Snake, and the Columbia, one may also hear the cries for courage, rectitude, equity, and release of rivers from their outdated and unnecessary industrial constrictions.
Among the testimonies to the “once-wild-eyed vision of a restored river” is Poet and Essayist, Tim McNulty’s “Letter to America: The Elwha, a River and a Vision Restored.“
And it is that “wild–eyed vision” which has also attracted independent filmmakers, each with a unique ability and passion to tell the story in motion pictures:
Jennifer Galvin’s The Memory of Fish. (2014)
Jessica Plumb’s and John Gussman’s Return of the River. (2014)
and Robert Lundahl’s Unconquering the Last Frontier (2000)
“Portrays the dignity and wisdom of the Lower Elwha Klallam in the face of almost half a century of racism and political ill-will…shows us how the tribe has taken center stage in the efforts to retain what’s left of Elwha salmon stocks. When the stocks return, more than the ecology will be restored…the tribe will have salmon to complete the circle of traditional ceremonial ways.” Adam Burke, High Country News
About Unconquering the Last Frontier: The Lesson Plan
Available from Bullfrog Films Contact the Filmmaker
Unconquering the Last Frontier Trailer, 2:00 TRT
Aerial Photograph, Glines Canyon Dam (with airplane tire), PHOTO : LUNDAHL, 2005, (For the National Park Service). Leica M6, 35 mm. Summicron. Fujichrome 400 Provia.
Women on the Front Line
It was the first week in March, 1994, when the sun first shone after a long winter.
Down the road to the hatchery walked two grandmothers, Bea Charles and Adeline Smith. Adeline and Bea were best friends. They had stuck together through all, from childhood.
Adeline spoke first. ‘We were told you want to hear a story.”
Beatrice Charles: “That was our way of life” from Unconquering the Last Frontier, clip.
Butch Charles (Elwha Klallam) hauls in a net, aboard the Kraken with Rob Elofson, 11:00 pm., Straight of Juan De Fuca, 1999. PHOTO : LUNDAHL, Leica M6, 50 mm. Summilux. Fujichrome 400 Provia
Adeline Smith: We were just Indians, and that was the treatment we got
We were Just Indians and that was the treatment we got. Clip from Unconquering the Last Frontier. Adeline Smith.
PHOTO Courtesy North Olympic Library System
PHOTO Courtesy North Olympic Library System
No judge is going to turn down any kind of award to them
Port Angeles Ad Hoc Citizens Committee Meeting 1996, from “Unconquering the Last Frontier”
Klallam Dancers, Unconquering the Last Frontier screening, Seattle. PHOTO : ZMEKHOL
Positive Visions and Cultural Change
When we discuss technology, the conversation is often framed in terms of “technological change.” Technologies are sometimes said to be “disruptive,” meaning, they create change.
Arguably, technologies related to information and energy have the greatest capacity for disruption.
This story is about power, and the cultural and environmental impacts brought about by energy development on the Elwha River over 100 years ago.
Steam Tractor. PHOTO courtesy North Olympic Library System
In 2012, the two dams on the Elwha River began to be removed.
Lower Elwha Dam, 2005. PHOTO : LUNDAHL, (For the National Park Service). Leica M6 35 mm. Summicron. Fujichrome 400 Provia.
The great gift of the Elwha — Hope”
“Right now, when it’s just us and a river waiting for the dams to come down, it may be difficult to conceive of the inspirational power of what you have done.
But when the salmon return, when the dippers and the herons and beavers and the bears crowd the banks, when the life of the ocean and the mountains are joined again, when justice is done for native people, you will have here something that moves lives and inspires people thousands of miles and continents away from here. It will be compelling, empirical proof of the health and practical genius of our own democracy.
This will be the place where our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren can see the life of the planet restored. They will see the tangible power and great beauty of what you have achieved. We are restoring honor. We are keeping promises. We are doing the right thing. Your children, grandchildren, great grandchildren — they will be proud of you. It will be the great gift of the Elwha — Hope.”
Senator Bill Bradley
