Columbia at the Crossroads

Our guest, Lynda Mapes, specializes in coverage of the environment, natural history, and Native American tribes. She writes for The Seattle Times and publishes elsewhere as well.

Lynda is going to give us a tour of the Columbia/Snake River. She sees the Columbia River at a crossroads. To be at a crossroad, of course, means that you select a path forward. This notion of choice may mean that you allow the past to push you forward in one direction, or it may mean that you imagine a quite different path. Either way, it helps to know the path we have taken to arrive at this crossroads.

This part is the path to the present. The path forward . . . what are our choices?

Lynda will also give us a read on how we Europeans have influenced the metaphoric – and actual -  flow of the Columbia over the last two hundred years or so. Some of this will be familiar and even reassuring. Other aspects may not be so comfortable.  

Don Schwerin, Chair, Ag & Rural Caucus, Washington State Democrats