Trafford Publishing: Rowdy River: The Wild and Scenic White Salmon

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Rowdy River: The Wild and Scenic White Salmon

by Keith McCoy

89 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #02-0959; ISBN 1-55395-245-6; US$32.00, C$38.95, EUR25.40, £18.50

If this is your introduction to Keith McCoy prepare to enjoy the voice of a man who has an intimate knowledge of the people and places of this beautful country. Listen as he tells the story of the rough and rowdy White Salmon River, which has literally run through his long and adventurous life.

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about the book about the author sample excerpt catalogue info

About the Book

When Lewis and Clark first saw this river one late October day in 1805, they paused to observe and record he bounteous salmon harvest. They called it Canoe Creek because of the profusion of Indian canoes beached there. If they had taken the time to examine even the lower reaches of this tumbling river, they might well have called it Rowdy River.
If this is your introduction to Keith McCoy prepare yourself to enjoy the voice of a man who has an intimate knowledge of the people and places of this beautiful country. Listen as he tells the story of the rough and rowdy White Salmon River, which has literally run through his long and adventurous life.

About the Author

If you are fortunate to live in the Columbia River Gorge, particularly on the Washington side of the great river, you probably know Keith McCoy--gentle man, storyteller, and historian. Except for four years in college and four years in the Navy, Keith has lived his entire life in his beloved Mount Adams country. Keith has been a newspaper columnist, a radio personality, as well as the author of three other books. In the Gorge he is also well known for his portrayal of William Clark, member of the Corps of Discovery. He is widely acknowledged as THE expert on local history and folklore.

Sample Excerpt

Foreword
The rough and rowdy White Salmon River has literally run through my long and satisfactory life. I thus hope that I may be forgiven use of the first person in some of my comments about the river.
Early memories are of the then-new Northwestern Lake where my maternal grandparents camped for several weeks each summer. Many families gathered at the lakefront.
Then, with a demand for waterfront sites for cabins, the power company began leasing sites. My family had one of the first and most permanent of the cabins. I well recall that about every fourth year we had to extend our boat dock if we expected to have a floating boat in the early morning as we set out for the favorite fishing spots. Silting was a problem from the very start.
As a youngster I had a rudimentary kayak. One that would be laughed at by the owners of the new, sleek fiberglass models. But it gave a boy access to every nook and cranny of the lake where an emerging eco-system could be observed. There he watched the occasional weasel that showed himself, a bear that came to drink and most often the sprightly water ouzels (we called 'em teeter-asses) that bobbed up and down as they scouted the shores for food and there were deer aplenty.
The big dam was a constant source of wonder and tributaries along the lake, such as Buck Creek and Mill Creek, beckoned young explorers.
Another memorable encounter with the White Salmon River came during college years when I worked on the summit of Mount Adams for the Glacier Mining Company as they explored the feasibility of removing and marketing the vast deposits of sulfur in the dormant volcano.
One of our most exciting duties was to collect sulfur samples from crevasses on both the White Salmon and Pinnacle glaciers. I don't think I realized it at the time, but I was at the very source of the rowdy river that would become so important to me.
In later years, when river fishing became the focus, many remote parts of the rowdy river were examined as we eager fishermen rappelled down the cliffs to reach remote and productive fishing holes.
The adventurous Dr. Ted Lathrop and his adventurous boys lured me into joining them for some of the earliest whitewater raft trips made on the White Salmon. We did three sections of the turbulent river long before commercial rafting began. One near fatal trip ended our trials. Much later trips with the expert Zollers were far more comfortable and safe.
In the early 1960's I bought the pioneer Trout Lake slaughterhouse. It was close by the tumbling White Salmon River and skirted on the other side by a rushing irrigation ditch. Restoring this tumble-down relic became an absorbing hobby.
In time a rustic cabin was attached to the pioneer building. It became my home for several memorable years. Refreshing sleep is inevitable when the sound of the White Salmon is just below the bedroom window. And, as a personal mini-museum called the Country Store was added, the nearby White Salmon provided soothing background music to those who visited.
Another adventure came with purchase of nearby farm property that gave us most of one half mile of riverfront. Our horses thrived there. And I developed more than a nodding acquaintance with a family of beavers that frequented that stretch of river. Before I knew it they had cut down three of the four apple trees I was nurturing. And then, to add insult to injury, they had cut seventeen trees from my favorite aspen grove. I am sure they resented the wire cages I put around the surviving trees.
As time takes its toll, some of us old-timers can no longer enjoy some of the stretches of the river we once frequented on foot or horseback. But we can still enjoy what we can see from the highway and the fifteen bridges that span the river. Most are excellent platforms from which to view the ever-rowdy river.
As we write about the river I hope it will bring back good memories for other old-timers and give our many new neighbors a better understanding of this special land they have chosen as their home.
Introduction
The national spotlight first fell on the White Salmon River when, in 1986, the Congress declared 7.7 miles of its length as a Wild and Scenic River. This was concurrent with establishment of the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic area. Awareness of this special river has grown as whitewater rafting and kayaking have become increasingly popular.
Renewed attention was focused on the river in the mid-1990's when the Condit Dam, built in 1912, was declared due for relicensing by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). It was the signal for environmentalists to push for the dam's removal so that salmon runs might be restored in this rushing river. Bitter controversy attended the series of hearings.
To reinforce the environmentalists' point of view, the American Rivers organization based in Washington D.C. in 1997 declared it "the third most endangered river in America".
And now, again, the spotlight has fallen on our special river with a meeting here in May of 2001 by a FERC contingent coming to view the project before completing their rulings. The Enterprise reported sentiment at that meeting was still about evenly matched between demands of the strict environmentalists and those who preferred that the dam and the Northwestern Lake that backs it be saved.
PacifiCorp, owners and operators of the pioneer facility, have plans to remove the dam in 2006, but now with the power crisis and FERC rulings in limbo, who knows for sure what will happen.
When Lewis and Clark first saw this river that late October day in 1805 they paused to observe and record the bounteous salmon harvest going on there. They called it Canoe Creek because of the profusion of Indian canoes beached there. If they had taken the time to examine even the lower reaches of this tumbling river, they might well have called it Rowdy River--just as I have thought of it over the years.
Between Webster and the thesaurus we find some interesting definitions and synonyms for the word rowdy: rough, quarrelsome, disorderly, boisterous, unruly, raffish, mischievous. Each and every one of these appellations applies to the White Salmon. A rowdy river, indeed!

Catalogue Information