Death of Celilo Falls

by Katrine Barber

For thousands of years, Pacific Northwest Indians fished, bartered, socialized, and honored their ancestors at Celilo Falls, part of a nine-mile stretch of the Long Narrows on the Columbia River. Although the Indian community of Celilo Village survives to this day as Oregon's oldest continuously inhabited town, with the construction of The Dalles Dam in 1957, traditional uses of the river were catastrophically interrupted. Most non-Indians celebrated the new generation of hydroelectricity and the easy navigability of the river "highway" created by the dam, but Indians lost a sustaining center to their lives when Celilo Falls was inundated.

Death of Celilo Falls is a story of ordinary lives in extraordinary circumstances, as neighboring communities went through tremendous economic, environmental, and cultural change in a brief period. Katrine Barber examines the negotiations and controversies that took place during the planning and construction of the dam and the profound impact the project had on both the Indian community of Celilo Village and the non-Indian town of The Dalles, intertwined with local concerns that affected the entire American treaty rights, federal Indian policy, environmental transformation of rivers, and the idea of "progress."

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Native American

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Moonkiszt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to the Emil and Kathleen Sick Lecture Book Series, Death of Celilo Falls is available for those interested in reading about the Columbia, dams built on the Columbia, communities in the Hood River, Dalles area, the Native tribes who lived in the area of the Celilo Falls (the falls which were drowned to create the Dalles dam), the effect of dams on the habitats of water and land creatures, and the echoes of all that 100 years away from all that 'progress.'

Hurts my heart. I understand the need for development, but it seems like 100 steps backward for every 1 moving ahead, and so outrageous that only a select few get to do the moving forward and so many others experience next to no benefits. Kudos to Katrine Barber for presenting the case of this involuntary sacrifice of resources and homelands wrenched from the Native people in the Celilo Falls area. (For all who drive east and west on I-84 along the Columbia, you are enjoying part of that sacrifice and a ponder on that tragedy would be fitting as you travel so conveniently.)

These books will have a readership focused on interests in the Pacific Northwest or happenings related to it. The books from the above-referenced series can be found at the University of Washington's website if your library doesn't have the book for which you are looking.

[Geoffrey Bateman · Rating 4 out of 5]

As the son of a man who worked as a mechanic for Tidewater Barge Lines and who kept the tugboats moving up and down on the Columbia River over the course of his career (and who himself was the son of a tugboat captain), this history resonates in a particularly personal way. It tells the history of the creation of the Dalles Dam and the demise of Celilo Falls in the late 1940s and early to mid-1950s, providing an account of the various constituents who played a role in domesticating the then wild river at an especially treacherous spot (at least for the shipping industry). Celilo Falls was also a place of great significance--culturally, religiously, economically--for a number of Native tribes in Washington and Oregon, including the Yakama, Umatilla, Warm Springs, and Nez Perce Indians. The building of the dam and the flooding of the area just up river had significant consequences for members of these tribes, as well as many other non-native people, impacting the fishery and the local geography. Overall, Barber's analysis is even handed and describes a number of important factors at play, from exploring the multiple stakeholders in the fishing industry prior to the dam's construction, to the complicated and not always unified resistance from these constituencies, from an analysis of the vision of progress the dam offered the largely white community of the Dalles itself, to the complicated and, from Barber's perspective, unjust compensation Native Americans managed to negotiate from the Federal Government. She is clearly writing to reclaim a sense of what was lost in this transaction and the process of the building of the dam, but even so, her analysis is well researched and documented and does not demonize anyone (which I could imagine doing when sympathies lie with Native communities). This is a painful legacy to grapple with, and one that more of us should confront, especially those of who us have benefited from the economic development that the Dalles Dam (and the entire system on the Columbia and Snake Rivers) opened up. Having spent so much of my childhood on the river and making the journey up and back along the Gorge and into Eastern Oregon, this book challenges any of us with ties to this region (and who are white or descended from folks who settled this land much more recently) to see its history in a different light and use this knowledge to address this legacy of injustice.

[Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent account of the history of Celilo Falls and the peoples that have lived near it. Barber's work is outstandingly balanced and quite well documented - two things that I always appreciate in a history of a controversial area. She also deserves credit for undertaking her history as a multifaceted issue - she doesn't neglect the interrelations between events and peoples that have affected Celilo Falls and she is careful to point out what would be missed if the study were undertaken solely from one perspective or another instead of comprehensively.

[K. Blaha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably very good on the academic front, a well-sourced account of the events of the dam at celilo falls. Not an exciting nonfiction read, as someone who is not versed on these topics. If this is your area of interest, it will probably be very useful. I have casually read about other dam projects and native issues, but this was a bit too specialized and specific for me and I suspect for other readers like me.

[Rob Melich · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written history describing the loss of a cultural treasure, Celilo Falls. Communism was not the threat, American racism greed and arrogance were. Progress not always progress.

[Ryan Mishap · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although an academic book, this details well the economic, military, jingoist, racist, and exploitative reasoning that brought The Dalles Dam into being. Celilo Falls was a section of the Columbia River where Native peoples—Celilo, Wasco, Yakima, Umatilla, and many others—had fished for salmon, met for trade, and existed for tens of thousands of years. The falls also made boat passage near impossible and lured whites to the fishing grounds. The Dalles Dam raised the waters and destroyed a sacred space. Barber, an Anglo professor, deals with the push for the dam, what it meant to Native peoples, the town of The Dalles, and much more. Though mostly neutral in tone, you can tell where her sympathy lies, as she reveals the reasoning and deeds of the dominant culture

[Denise Spicer · Rating 1 out of 5]

A tediously academic book in which the author draws predictable conclusions in her interpretations of the historical details.