I read this article in the New York Times today, and the film really hit home with me, so I thought I would share.
You can read the article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/05/opinion/sundance-haida-totem-pole.html
Watch the film “The Family Who Brought Totem Poles Back Home”
Up until the completion of Bonneville Dam in 1938, a ghostly white forest of drowned tree stumps could be observed along both sides of the Columbia River between Cascade Locks and The Dalles. The submerged forest was first mentioned in a geologic textbook in 1853, in “Principles of Geology” by Sir Charles Lyell
“Thus Captains Clark and Lewis found, about the year 1807 (sic), a forest of pines standing erect under water in the body of the Columbia RIver, which they supposed, from the appearance of the trees, to have been submerged only about twenty years.”
Both Lewis and Clark in 1805 and Captain Fremont in 1845 recognized that the trees were drowned by the formation of a lake behind a 200-foot landslide dam.
Penny Postcard, ca.1920s, “Wind Mountain and Submerged Forest, Columbia River”.
Source: John Allen, Professor of Geology at Portland State University, 1985, “Time Travel in Oregon”.
In the corners of the garden, I can see words caught in the geometry of webs that bob and dance in the breeze. I feel the sunflowers ushering poems through the labored
Humming Bird keeping time to the biology of existence.
“Invasive plants were like all evil things; the only way to ensure that they wouldn’t return was to face them head-on, battle it out, and win. Anything else was only a temporary fix. I sighed, thinking of my own life. I was letting the weeds grow all over me. They were threatening my happiness and, in some ways, my life. So why couldn’t I face them?”
― Sarah Jio
I seem to keep courage in a box, only reaching for it when life is set a blaze. My day to day has been ran over by fear, a crippling fear that eats and gnaws at my insides. Like brambles who bribe me with their berries, I allow this fear to grow until I am unable to move at all. I lose relationships to this. I lose myself to this. The garden is teaching me courage of everyday life. And in these times, everyday life is getting increasingly darker, so the practice is appreciated.
Be well Comrades.
these veins of fire do smolder
beneath ash and flesh-
our eyes glow red-
and lips spit rocks-
we morph and quake
and shimmer and shake
and burn it all again.
in the dust the sun does bake
the ash to caked earth-
and a seed finds
its way to grow.
now our arms do shake as we begin to awake
and reach for the sky we fly….
and as storms do come,
and as mountains do cry-
-silent-
in their shadow-
we call home.
LAWETLAT’LA
The curve around a domed landscape harkens an era of black smoke and tar. Roads and the gorge became intwined in a historical knot of progress and expansion. Along with the trailblazing of the railroad, the fuel dependent pathways would change the course of what it meant to transport goods and culture. As the pace quickened along its shores, the river seemed to halt and stall behind pale dams hungry for a dragon named energy.
The very base of this mountain holds vigil, and reminds the River how it use to sing, and the mingle of wind holds time with the sun.
Real Indian
By my Auntie Teri Deras
Little boy
questions
‘Are you
a real
Indian?’
‘Yes!’ I
Patiently
say.
‘But you
don’t have
braids!”
I smile and
walk away
in my
Reebok moccasins.
Reposted from Confluence Project Please check out and support the work that they do!
Stories from the River is a series of documentary shorts produced in collaboration with Confluence, Tule Films and NW Documentary. These videos are here to support teachers as they work to bring Indigenous prospects into schools. They are also educational and inspirational to anyone curious to gain a more inclusive understanding of the Columbia River system. Filmmaker Woodrow Hunt (Klamath/Cherokee) of Tule Films produced this series with the support of the National Endowment for the Arts.
The theme of this video is resilience and survival. Four Native individuals talk about resilience, survival, river rights, and the fight for recognition.
In order of appearance:
Bobbie Conner, Cayuse/Nez Perce/Umatilla
Tanna Engdahl, Cowlitz
Greg Archuleta, Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde
Mildred Quaempts, Umatilla
The Cowlitz name for Mount St. Helens is Lawetlat’la, which roughly translates to “the smoker”, and on May 18th, 1980, I watched as she awoke and gave her smoke to the world. I was six years old, and have never been the same!
I was six years old and bewildered by what I saw and felt that day. I could hear so clearly the call of my Ancestors and the Call of the Land. This was God, this was the true power of God. On this day, I became an Animist.
Photo info: These photos were taken by photographer John V. Christiansen at 8:32 a.m. local time on May 18, 1980. They were later featured in a 1981 edition of National Geographic magazine.
The shots were taken from Pahto (Mount Adams), looking across to Lawetlat’la (Mt. St. Helens) just over 50 kilometers away.
The persistence of strength and hard work, just to live, and to function each day. When the flowers bloomed, and the rains subsided, you noticed.. and, you smiled.
Moore/Nelson Flume near Stevenson, WA., early 1900′s.
Che-che-op-tin, is an old Watala/ Cascade word meaning, “the navel of the world.”
Che-che-op-tin, (beacon rock) © H a v e n