Greg Walden: “colleagues, today we memorialize and remember the events of more than 50 years ago when the gates closed for the first…”

“colleagues, today we memorialize and remember the events of more than 50 years ago when the gates closed for the first time on the Dalles Dam, and within 6 hours another wild and noisy stretch of the mighty Columbia River fell silent and serene in the name of progress. Celilo Falls was also known as Wyam, which means echo of falling water, or sound of water upon the rocks. And, indeed, what a sound it must have been to hear the fourth largest river in America as it crashed over basalt rocks and cliffs. Lewis and Clark's journals refer to the falls as a place where ``the river turned on edge.'' This photograph here to my left is actually one my father took as a colorized slide before the falls was inundated. It shows the tribal members fishing from these wooden platforms, roped to the edge with ropes around their waist. They would spread sand out on the platforms because all the water made the platforms so slick, and then they would engage with the dip nets to hoist 40-pound, 50-pound, 60-pound salmon out of the river. The trick was not to get more than two fish in your net because that might be more than you weighed, and you ran the risk of being dragged into the river. Indeed, there was a young man who fell in the river, and later was rescued and saved because he ended up in a net and was able to be pulled out. What a river it was and what a river it is. As the Columbia River passed over these falls, the sound could be heard from miles away.”