Bridge of the Gods, Mountains of Fire

From the Book Flap:

The Columbia River cut a long and deep passage, the Columbia Gorge, along what is now the Oregon-Washington border. It is the only sea-level gap through the Cascade Range, which parallels the Pacific Ocean from British Columbia to northern California. The west end of the Columbia Gorge is a lush rain forest of giant trees, ferns and waterfalls. Further east the Gorge opens into oaks and grasslands, then blends into the sagebrush and sand dunes of the "cold desert." The dramatic landscape is a textbook of geology, including recent volcanic action, floods that filled the Gorge, glaciers and massive slides that relocated the mile-wide Columbia River.

Just as it is the meeting ground of the west ocean weather and the more extreme dry continental climate, the Gorge was the gathering place for many diverse Indian cultures. Lewis and Clark documented the Gorge's unique plantlife, and the Gorge was the last obstacle on the Oregon Trail — and the worst.

Chuck Williams, the author/photographer of Bridge of the Gods, Mountains of Fire, is uniquely suited to tell the story of the Columbia Gorge. A few years ago he returned to live on his family land in the Gorge, the place where his father and his grandmother, one of the last full-blooded Cascade Indians, were born. Her grandfather was the chief of a large village near where Bonneville Dam was later built — until he was unjustly hung by Gen. Phil Sheridan, then a lieutenant at Fort Vancouver. The author is also the national parks specialist for Friends of the Earth, the international conservation organization, and is intimately involved in the campaign to protect the Columbia Gorge.

Chuck Williams tells the story of the creation of the Gorge, first through the Bridge of the Gods legend, then by modern geological evidence. The author writes of the Cascade Indians (the once-powerful Chinookan people who were quickly decimated by exotic diseases brought by the fur traders) and of the Long Narrows, probably the longest continuously-occupied village site in the country. He tells of the fur traders, the pioneers, the tragic wars, the colorful steamboats, fishwheels, the railroad era, Sam Hill's castle and the effect of the dams on the salmon runs. Through the eyes of both his native and white ancestors, the author brings the history of the Gorge up to the present controversies, including the effort to protect the Gorge as a national scenic area. The thorough text is complimented by the author's color photography as well as historic paintings and photographs.