Almost Every Northwest Angler living within 100 miles of the Columbia River or its tributaries has a weekly, if not daily, if not hourly, ritual this time of year: checking the salmon and steelhead counts passing over eight dams on the Columbia and lower Snake rivers—Bonneville, The Dalles, John Day, McNary, Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental,…
Members of the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe will tell you that 100-pound Chinook salmon once returned to their namesake river on the northeastern tip of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. While no one can substantiate the existence of these behemoths, one thing is certain: The construction of the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams between 1913 and 1927 cut…
I grew up in Detroit, a city whose belching smokestacks and clamoring auto plants preach a relentless contempt for mass transportation. Yet when I moved to Washington, D.C., I fell in love with trains—the grand stations and comforting rhythms of the ride hooked me. I eventually ditched my car completely, relying solely on bike, cab…