Salmon, People, and Place: A Biologist's Search for Salmon Recovery

Side Channel 4 - A Look at the Year 2150

125 Side Channel 4 A Look at the Year 2150 From time to time while writing Salmon Without Rivers and this book, I would push back from my desk and shift my thinking away from the immediate problems facing the salmon and speculate about the future. In those speculative moments, I would think about where our current path is going and where it will take the salmon and the bioregion. Sometimes I imagined taking a journey forward a hundred or more years in time and thought about what I might find. This side channel and the next describe two of those trips. wu I don’t think the state can afford to have 40 percent of its water supply go to waste in the ocean, when there are needs for it in other parts of the state. —William Gianelli, Director of Water Resources, California.1 I am going on a most unusual fishing trip. I am taking my great, great, great … grandson fishing. My plan is to take him to the river that has always held a special place in my heart. At first, I was somewhat nervous. Seven generations separate Charlie and me, but there is something about his looks and behavior that I find familiar. Within a few minutes we are at ease with each other and the chance to go fishing makes us instant pals. Since this is an imaginary trip, I don’t have to explain how I happen to have my old pickup truck or how I managed to get the fuel to run it. As we head out of town, I run into the first big change since 2012. All the 126 Salmon, People, and Place major highways and most of the secondary thoroughfares are toll roads and the privilege of using them comes at a high price. My pickup dwarfs the few smaller vehicles on the road, and they all appear to be either solar or battery powered. There are no eighteen-wheelers. At a rest stop, one guy looks the pickup over and tells me about a fellow in Portland who has a barn full of old vehicles with combustion engines. “He and his friends drive them in the Rose Parade every year.” Then he adds, “He doesn’t use gasoline though. I’m not sure what he uses.” Charlie is studying dinosaurs in school, and, as I drive, he tells the same stories about Tyrannosaurus and Brontosaurus that my own boys brought home from school, stories about changing environments and disappearing giants. Charlie’s reference to changing environments strikes home particularly hard. I expected to see change on this trip, but the magnitude of the change is staggering. There is little in the infrastructure that looks familiar. A few roads follow the same old routes, but I recognize little else. The few new or wellmaintained buildings are small islands surrounded by aging and poorly maintained structures. Even the parks and other natural areas within the city look worn out, over used, and under maintained. The Columbia and Willamette rivers are about half the size I remember. I wonder what happened to the water. Everything I see suggests several decades of a very poor economy. In spite of the crumbling cityscape, I hold out hope that the river to which I am taking Charlie will still be a special place. I tell myself, “Once we get out of town, things will be different.” I am really anxious to see the river. It was a special part of my life. For my entire life, the river was a friend and a refuge where solitude and contemplation came easy. My sense of place was rooted in and nourished by its flowing waters. I tell Charlie, “There is a river near here, and when I was younger I spent a lot of time there. I learned how to fish for salmon on that river.” I see familiar signs in the landscape that signal we are approaching the river, but the river is not where I think it should be. I tell Charlie, “There are so many changes that I must be confused about where we are.” I do a quick check on our location. The distance traveled is right, and I recognize some features in the landscape. The river should be here, but where is it? A strange thought crosses my mind, but I dismiss it. Rivers Side Channel 4 127 don’t...