Reflections on Home, Nature, and Maya Lin's Confluence Project Landscapes

An interview with Ann Batchelor Hursey, a poet and writer of prose, and the author of "Field Notes to Maya Lin's Confluence Project Landscapes."

The Confluence Project commemorates the bicentennial of Lewis and Clark's journey along the Columbia River in Oregon and Washington, especially the role of the Columbia River tribes who welcomed and assisted the explorers in their travels.

Poems and haiku are sprinkled throughout this interview, illuminating the various topics of conversation. Here's where you can find one of the poems in the episode:

6:52 — "How It All Began" by Ann Batchelor Hursey

There are many more, offering insight and reflection.

For more about Ann and her work, visit her website.

For more on the Confluence Project, go to confluenceproject.org.

And for more about Maya Lin, visit her site.

This is Kate Jones. Thank you for listening to The Gale Hill Radio Hour!

The show is available in Apple and Google Podcasts, Spotify and other podcast directories. Also on Substack and YouTube;  Facebook, Instagram  and LinkedIn.

Transcript

Kate:

Hello and welcome to the Gale Hill Radio Hour. I'm your host, Kate Jones, having a conversation with Ann Batchelor Hursey, poet, writer and author of "Field Notes to Maya Lin's Confluence Project Landscapes." 

So glad to have you on the show today, Ann. 

Ann:
Thanks!

Kate:
At only 64 pages long, your book, "Field Notes," is a beautifully designed little paperback that gives readers big themes to ponder. Chief among them, I think, is what it means to call a place home. Is that right? 

Ann:
Well, home is such a big and inclusive word. And the confluence project looks at the bicentennial and the homelands that they took on the Columbia river and over some mountains on their way out to the Pacific coast.

So I'm looking at the big words of home, hometown and homelands. How does that sound? And homelands refers to the first people who lived out here before the settler culture moved out west, thanks to the Lewis and Clark core discovery. So there we go. 

Kate:
Yes, though they didn't actually discover anything, did they? They discovered people living there. So anyway, how did this project come up? 

Ann:
Wow. Okay. So money was beginning to flow into both Oregon and Washington states getting ready for the bicentennial and almost at the same time, the tribes along the river, the ones that had. Renowned for greeting Lewis and Clark and featured in their journals.

They said, how about we celebrate the people who greeted Lewis and Clark on their way out here. And then there was a nonprofit, not yet named Confluence, but, uh, a wonderful, free thinking person who said Maya Lin. I think we need Maya Lin for this. And at the same time, back at the Umatilla, um, his name, Anton Minthorn said, Maya Lin. I think we need Maya Lin. 

It’s documented that within 24 hours, both this organizer in Vancouver, Washington, and this tribal, I would call him chief, but he was in charge of the. Um, the Confederated tribes of the Matilda, they had the exact same idea. So they contacted my Ellyn. And at first she said, no.
And then she thought differently when a good representation of the tribes with Jane Jacobson, this nonprofit person flew to New York city and graded her, made an appointment and graded her in her studio in Manhattan and said, this is what we want you to do. It's not going to be just about Lewis and Clark.
It's going to be Lewis and Clark and how we help them on their journey. And then she said, oh, well, I will do it then. And, uh, and then, and so I think they traveled there in the 1990 nines or early aughts. And then the confluence project was formally put together in 2000 and. That's a nonprofit out here.

That's more than you want to know. 

Kate:
Oh, that's good. It's really a good grounding. I like that. And the Lewis and Clark bicentennial was in 2005, right? 

Ann:
They traveled out here. They went one way and then they spent the winter out on the coast, just north of Astoria in a really awful winter, which I guess it off it is wet.
And then they turned around and went back and, um, And the oh six and 1806, it was around trip deal for them. Huge, huge traveling anyway, but what we have with the confluence project are as soon as they hit the snake river, and then that flows into the Columbia river, that's where all these river tribes lived and greeted them along the way.
And they helped choose the six spots for these Maya Lin landscapes and or art installations. They've been called both and, and she worked with the tribal elders and artists, um, to come up with how they want visitors who come there to learn more about their people, the land, and, um, their history. 

Kate:
So, and you live in the Pacific Northwest specifically, specifically Mount Lake Terrace, Washington. And you've lived in the Seattle area for a long time. 

Ann:
Yeah, we've been out, we've been out here longer than we've been in Ohio, my husband and I. 

Kate:
So how did a visit to Pike Place market in Seattle draw you into the Confluence Project?

Ann:
I love this story because, you know, I'm a poet, as well as a former teacher. I've had a lot of hats in my life, but I love Pike Place Market. And I went there just to go there for fun and to be inspired. And when I looked down, they have these crafts, people that have, you know, things they want to sell as well as fish and vegetables and flowers.

So, I met a petroglyph there on a necklace and would be okay if I share this poem I wrote? This was written way before I knew about field notes. Is that okay? 

And the poem, for people listening, just know that I'm going to be using words that are unfamiliar because they're names of tribes and petroglyph is called She Who Watches, but her Wishram name is Tsagaglal. 

That's all you need to know before I start reading this poem, called “How It All Began.” 

"Pike Place Market 2014. When I first saw her face carved into a black resin charm for sale on a necklace in pike place market. I spoke her English name. She who watches and learned about coyotes question to her long ago when animals could talk her village sheltered, well said and happy.
He said, changes are going to happen. How will you watch over your people? She did not know so old man coyote changed her into a silent face, carved in rock to watch over her people through wind and rain below her cliff shall glow. Last of the women chiefs, her large almond eyes. Watch your people high above big river, which Shrim Wasco tonight.
Alma Tila Yakima. She stares down, wins that pulse against the salty clips. She who watches no Spears and hooks and nets that harvest arching salmon, her men catch salmon as women dry and trade this wealth with other tribes, I once believed those eyes could be any woman's eyes, eyes that search for a child's return eyes at checkout, back to close the door to thunder.
Eyes that guide a hand to crack a window open, allow the level of rain to enter, to tuck a blanket under, to stoke a fire, to keep the family warm and dry. But I lied to you. This stone owl woman is not any woman, no arms, no legs. She cannot lift her hold or change. The sound of rain shall glory. She who watches last of the women chiefs, her unblinking gaze protects her river people forever."

Thank you. 

Kate:
Wow, thank you very much for reading that. So the writing of "Field Notes to Maya Lin's Confluence Project Landscapes" began with the petroglyph She Who Watches? 

Ann:
Yes, because then I started talking to them. As people do like me. And I did research and I kept asking her, what are you watching?
And that, and this is where Google comes in. I put, um, Columbia Hills state park, which is where the petroglyph is now held. And it's, it's behind fencing. So people won't vandalize it, but she's looking right across the river at NYXL index, which is the name of, um, from her village across to the other side at Celilo falls.
A very important place. And, um, the river people, I don't know, it was a Fisher fishing place that has been traveled to and fish debt for more than 10,000 years. And it was a great gathering place. And Lewis and Clark were there. They called it the great Mart and, um, they were amazed at all the people there, all the languages being spoken and particularly the fish, the fishing going on.
Um, and for anyone who wants to look up Celilo falls, you can see a picture of what it looked like in 1957, before the dolls dam opened or closed its gate and turned it into lakes. A Wilo. So, um, so coyote was right. Things are going to change. What is she going to do to help her people? Right. Wow. So anyway, So here we've got you.
You are a non native woman learning so much. There's for sure. Yes, for sure. And, uh, so, um, I w I want to just go back really quick to Maya Lin, um, and her, her being, you know, her involvement with this and how she. You know is, so this is so amazing, um, because it's so environmentally sensitive, cause she was famous.
She became famous for her award winning 1982, Vietnam war Memorial in Washington, DC. And um, and yet she does all these other things also that have so much beauty to them and are so site-specific. So here she is doing that. And then you and your husband, David go on this journey journey and um, to go to all these different sites and, and that is very cultural.
It's like this bringing together of different, different times and different, um, different sensibilities. Oh, that's for sure. Um, the interesting thing is, um, Anton Minthorn, who was one of the first, um, elders that was on the confluence project board. Um, he was a Vietnam war veteran and he had been to her Memorial in DC.
So he was deeply affected by that, that monument to all the men and women who lost their lives. And he got a documentary and showed it among. His friends are veterans on the reservation and they all agreed that she was brilliant in how she treated loss as well as using the land as part of the statement.
So, um, it just kinda gives me goosebumps, you know, and, and the we in my narrative. So Dave, my husband had just retired and we knew that we could just hit the road whenever we wanted and his, his degree was in history. And so he was always. You know, engaged in wanting to know more. So we went first to, um, Cape disappointment, but I do have one little add on, um, because David is, my book is mentioned, uh, we all the time, because we traveled by card each of the sites or the next two years.
And they're spread out on over 438 miles of the river. So you just can't do them all on one day, nor would you want to. Um, but I remembered that Basha the Japanese haiku and high-band master. He also had a companion named Sora who traveled by his side as he wrote his book narrow road to a far province.
It's actually a favorite, one of mine. He's going on a pilgrimage. And along the way, he tells you how to get there. What famous places you might see and then. He feels something and he writes something and it's about nature. And so my field notes, which are in my, um, in my journal, began to shape themselves into this similar Japanese high-band style of prose filled with, uh, travelers, narrative, place, names, and directions, and then small poems that reflect interior moments as well as gems of new vocabulary that were specific to that landscape.
So that's why this book is really different. It's not like anything you'll well, I don't know. I'm happy with it because, um, this is the book that wanted to be written. So, and here we are, um, most people are, are familiar with haiku. I think, you know, he's certainly heard about it, but high-band what is that?
It's it's like a think of a small paragraph. Think of somebody just telling you something. Um, you know, like, well, we went over this Ridge and we looked out over something, something bay and down to the valley, we went filled with flowers and then there would be something about the flowers. There's something about the season.
So basically it reads like I'm well, I'm giving you directions, how to get there. Um, because the myelin installations are not there. They're not neon. They're not, um, In bronze, they're very quiet. And basically when she worked with the tribes, what they wanted was to get people down to the river and see what they know and feel about the land they call home.
So I could begin by reading how Dave and I had a really hard time finding the first ones. Cause that's kind of how it started Dave. And I thought, well, this'll be easy, but it wasn't, it wasn't. So each of my chapters or each of my sections begin with the day that we were there, the name of the park. So Cape disappointment, state park Monday, February 12th, 2018.
And I tell him the weather temperature in low fifties, and I start with a haiku CLO cold cloudless morning, blinding sun reflects off waves. A shouldn't have blessed. Do not, as we did begin your journey of discovery early in the week to visit myelins art installations at the Lewis and Clark interpretive museum in February.
Even if you want to visit the museum, the museum keeps winter hours and is closed Sunday through Wednesday as if the name Cape disappointment was not clearly enough. And just like Lewis and Clark. Yes, I created maps. Okay. I love that. I love that beginning of the chapter, because it's so fun and it's like, yeah, Cape disappointment is quite a name and trying to find this, this stuff.
So, so actually field notes does help as serve as a guide in how to, how to actually find your way to these, to the sites. Exactly. And, um, and if anyone can make mistakes, I did. And David did. And, um, and what we did learn is that they were not that hard to find. We just had to ask somebody. So we, we left this museum, which I've yet to visit, but it's up on, on a high Ridge, overlooking the ocean.
And, um, and they're now carrying this book there, which is great. So I'll have to go back. But, um, but there, there are the reason it's good to start with Cape disappointment is she did four different installations at Cape disappointment. And two of them are on one side to her. On the other side, they're both facing water, but different kinds of ones, a bay, and once actually the ocean.
So, um, but the first place we found was the foot fish cleaning table, which I was really looking forward to. Um, and we found it and I have three they're called linked haikus about what happened as soon as I found. This it's a working fish cleaning table may out of solid basalt and carved onto the top is the Chinook origin story.
And that's one of the tribes that call that place home. So here's the three linked, um, haiku fish cleaning table carved from solid basalt gleams as two otters swim by etched on the basalt is a Chinook Chehela origin story read and understand how the great river salmon and its people are one that's nice.
Yeah. And then just down from there is what's called the viewing platform. And one of the, um, the group of men that went with, uh, Lewis and Clark, he has a quote that's carved into that posole that says this morning, the weather appeared to settle and clear off, but the river remained still rough. When about three miles, when we came to the mouth of a river where it empties into a handsome day.
And I just say our walk, which was much shorter, baker bay remains handsome. Now sit down and all these places give you benches to just sit and ponder. That's great. And, and the thing about my Alynn it's more than just the bench, they did a huge bunch of restoration along the shoreline. So I wrote three more haiku that kind of talk about the plants that were added.
So Lynn provides a bit. Linger, listen and learn from estuarine edges beneath the platform. Hides an unseen catch basin near wet meadow plants, common lady Fern Henderson's checkered mallow, tufted hair, grass, buttercup. So people floor, all that, if they want it. Oh yeah. And if you're, if you're, if you're into native plants, you will find them there.
But before this, it was just kind of, um, bulkheads to keep the water from getting too close to the picnic tables and the parking lot. So what they did was they did a whole lot of relandscaping it to bring it back to what was close to its, um, regular shoreline. And it did have a wet meadow in there, which I had never heard of before, but I plucked some of these gems of new vocabulary to use and to, I call them like a list haiku poem.
So, uh huh. That's good. I like that. And this and this site, this first one is, um, where Lewis saying Clark's journey ended at the mouth of the Columbia and then they turn around and they went back. They went back, but not until they, um, stayed a winter, I'm on the coast and there's yet another park you can go to, um, where you can see it's called Fort Clatsop.
They built a Fort with the help of the Chinook tribe, um, who showed them a good place to winter over, you know, before they started down the Missouri, they wintered over in, I think it was North Dakota at Fort Mandan, so they know better than to travel anywhere in the winter. Um, and so that's where they stayed for quite a few months.
And I heard they got really tired of eating salmon. I don't know. Uh, it's, it's a pretty good fish, I guess it is until that's all you eat anyway. Good morning. Noon and night. Okay. How about keep going? Yeah. Do you want to talk about the Vancouver land bridge in Vancouver watching. Okay. Can I end with a really quick postscript?
Okay. So from Cape deception, no, keep disappointment keeps deception is another one out here from Cape disappointment. Dave and I drove to have breakfast in Astoria, which is on our way to Vancouver land bridge. And we ate breakfast there. And, um, the waitress was really cute and perky and she said, what are you been up to?
And I, I was a few sieve about the myelin, um, installations. And she said, well, I'm amazed. I camp there every summer. In fact, she called it camp de every summer, and she never knew about these confluence project art installations. And they had been there for 12 years by the time Dave and I got there. Uh, and you end that with Maya Lin would approve.
And yes, Maya Lin would approve. She was not about bringing attention to herself at all, which is kind of, kind of wonderful. It really is. And different, you know, for anybody who's got any measure of fame or wants to have it, you know, and she does not seem to be in, in, in the business that she's in, in the art than she, that she's in to, um, be famous.
She wants to make a, make a difference and give back. I know she's pretty, pretty awesome. It'd be great to meet her someday, but I don't think so, but anyway, um, so Cooper land bridge, what is that one all about? I always call this one the most complicated because, um, So there were so many different cultures that found this place attractive I'm from the Hudson bay company, the fur trading company.
It was also part of the Klickitat trail, which is where the plateau tribes would come over the mountains and then come down that direction to get to the river for trading. And then once the 20th century kicked off, they had, um, there was ship building, airplane, building, you name it. I mean there, I mean, so basically the land bridge was the idea was my lens, but she hired, uh, a wonderful architect to build it.
Um, his name was John Paul Jones and. There's four Vancouver, which president grant was there at one point anyway, but you couldn't walk from the Fort Vancouver spot to the river anymore. There were railroads and a couple major highways on either north, south, and east and west. So they came up with a plan to build this land bridge that goes up and over all of the things in your way, like the railroad tracks, like roads.
And then it ends down on the side where the river is, but you still have to walk Ooh, across another parking lot, but you can actually put your toe in the water. So, and now it's used as a place to just get from point a to point B. Vancouver's doing a lot. Vancouver, Washington is doing a lot to get fun stuff going along the waterway.
It's a real bicycle path too. So, so because of that, um, I think John Paul Jones said, we just wanted to throw a Prairie over the river because it used to be a Prairie that the tribes used to grow Camus and they'd had controlled burns there for their, for their food, their first foods. And so along this Landbridge, there's plantings of native plants on both sides and they're, um, and they're trying to learn to keep them watered with climate change.
It's a little harder cause the rain isn't as a few said, but he built in, um, kind of cisterns that would capture the rain. This is the architect. And then on the bridge are three different overlooks designed by Lillian Pitt and artist. Um, from three of the river tribes, there's the land overlook, the people overlook and the, um, river overlook and.
It's beautiful. And she's included nine of the languages used by the river tribes, especially could to, um, have like stencil cut words in those, those languages. And let's see, let's see. Oh, it would be, I could even try to say their names, but I can't. But, um, but I do have these linked haiku about what kind of happened all in the same place.
I used to joke, I said, David's kind of like a lasagna of history. I can't believe how many layers there are. So the click attack trail that once brought tribes and trappers to the river's edge. To trade furs and fish and harvest Camus exchange Prairie floodplains for homesteads and barracks lumber mills, airfields boat yards, linked by trains and roads.
The great rivers beach, no longer yields to Cedar canoes on its banks. And then I have another three haiku, which are really lists of some of the wonderful plants, the native plants that are just Prairie being planted alongside the Landbridge. And here here's the list. Wild rose and cat tail sword, Fern, Oregon, white Oak Camus, and solo Cottonwood, Willow salmon and cymbal Berry, Western red, Cedar buying maple Hazel Snowberry ocean spray, Pacific.
Ninebark all those things planted along. This, this it's amazing. They're like little tiny samples, but I think they're going to be growing bigger and bigger. And they're just, I think now they do have to water it when it gets really, really hot, like last summer. Okay. It got over a hundred. Um, but these are all native plants, so they should be able to grow there cause they once flourished there.
So I think it's a brilliant idea and it's, it's probably the easiest of my lens, um, landscapes to drive to from Seattle. So, okay. So when Dave and I went, went here, it was on our way home from, um, disappointment, Kate discipline. So that was actually pretty nice. Uh, good. You know, here, you had a hard time finding the one disappointed and then this was easy and you know, the funny, here's the other funny story.
Um, because I always call myself because I'm not a native and I'm, uh, I'm a settler culture. Um, and because I'm really into she, who watches, I knew that Lillian Pitt who's, excuse me, who's an artist that really, um, Has history with she who watches. I bought a, a broach or a necklace that she designed from the gift store at Fort Vancouver.
So I really wanted to go into the Fort Vancouver gift shop and look at some more of her art of which I did. And I bought another piece. So we ended up doing the Vancouver Landbridge backwards. So I started at the barracks and ended up at the welcome gate. But then I, I joked and said, well, I'm being welcomed to the river, so that's right.
And who's to say what, you know, what to start with anyway. Right. So let's, let's go on to Oregon, the Sandy river, Delta bird blind and trout day. And that's where Lin created an elliptical bird blind. And it's a quiet spot where visitors can see birds and wildlife that inhabit the area today while learning about the flora and fauna that existed there 200 years ago, but are now extinct endangered or threatened.
So, wow. So you have, this is one of the things, I mean, that's so boring, but it also makes you, I would think visitors appreciate what's there, you know, and, uh, to think about, you know, what yes, what we've lost, but also to have appreciation for what's here now. Um, you also though, and have an interesting side story that goes with this site and I really like it.
So if you don't mind telling me no. It's like Dave and I, we have all the time in the world and I'm not, you know, I'm just taking my time. And this is just before COVID, which is kind of a good thing. So, um, we were invited to a celebration at a nearby outdoor events center. For the 50th anniversary of the Jew of Jethro tall, because Ian Anderson had been in that he's the famous pop rock flutist concert.
I went to long, long, long time ago. Well, and a funny connection is my son who lives in Portland. He had a really dear friend and he and his friends love to go to concerts. And his friend said, Hey, why don't we do like an intergenerational concert? Why don't we all go? Cause it was her birthday. Why don't we all go to McMenamins Edgefield?
And if our parents want to come, they'll come with us. And we'll, it's an outdoor place and we can all listen to Jethro tall. So Dave and I looked at the map and I just started laughing. I said, This is only like two and a half miles it's concert from the Maya Lin Sandy River Delta. So I said, let’s do it.
And so I was going back and trying to remember death, hotel songs, and I found one that I used his lyrics happy, and I'm smiling. Walk a mile to drink your water. That's from his 1969 album living in the past. So I saw this overlap of going to the myelin Lewis and Clark, um, bird blind, um, singing a Jethro Tull song.
Excellent. You know, the past is here, so this is the present. So it's the future, isn't it. It's all going, you know, it's all here at the same time. It's really, that is fascinating. You know, and in each of my entries, I try to find like a little kind of quote or facts from Lewis and Clark. And so in another past, I say Lewis and Clark camped near the Sandy river Delta.
And they complained they could not sleep for the noise, kept by the Swan skis, white and black Brant ducks and et cetera, on the opposite side of the river. And the Sandhill cranes were really loud. They were immensely numerous, and there are no noise was horrid. And this was from William Clark's journal.
So, um, but meanwhile, they're, they're keeping track of all the birds and the Florida on, uh, and the animals along the way, but I just thought it was great because the thing about, um, this bird blind is a lot of development happened here, including, um, an aluminum plant. You know, that would smelt down aluminum and then it, then they had to, and then when that closed, they had to dredge out the mud and silk because it was so contaminated.
And then there were all these, um, non native blackberries there. So there had already been a big restoration project happening there when Maya Lin was looking at it for a future site. And luckily it's on a big like park area. There's like an off-leash dog park there. And so, um, she and her team just got.
Got together and they figured out a trail, you walk a mile and a quarter from the parking lot to the bird blind. And because we went there many years later, a lot of the native plants are starting to bring in the tree cover. And Dave was ahead of me. So I couldn't see where he was, but I heard birds first before I saw the bird blind.
So that's just to say that the bird blind and the plantings and the excavation, and they had hundreds of volunteers taking out the, um, invasive Blackberry bushes. And I can't even, I mean, it was like, Acres that people just came in and started, you know, hammering out. So right now it's gorgeous. And, um, there's an, um, an educator who's with the grand Ronde Confederated tribes who does tours with school groups and tells the stories of the plants in the right season as you walk by them.
So I got to be a road trip with educators and I got to hear his stories go with the plantings. So it's kind of a much bigger version of what we saw at the land bridge, but it's pretty impressive. Great. So why don't we move on to second Julia state park and Pasco, Washington, where Maya Lin designed seven story circles that explore the native cultures, language, flora and fauna, geology, and natural history of the site.
And I thought this was really great that this site is significant because it was a well-established gathering place for native people. And when the explorers came upon it, they knew what they were, they were for the first time, since I'm charted territory like that, it was already so well known. That's right.
And the interesting thing is secretary Leah is, um, they have a museum there dedicated just to her and, um, and it was at this spot that she. You know, she was, they say kidnapped, but basically her, her tribe and another tribe had some kind of war or fight and her tribe lost. So they took a certain amount of people with them back to basically North Dakota, which is where the man damn Fort Mandan was.
But the reason she was hired on with Lewis and Clark is because she spoke to Shoney. And so at this place where, um, let's see the snake river and the Columbia river come together, they were hoping that she could help negotiate for horses because her tribe used horses. What they didn't realize is Ken seemed her family, the ones that lived through whatever the massacre was in eight years.
But when she was there, she met her brother for the first time. And guess what? He was the chief. Oh, wow. Is that a great story or watch, you know, so all along the way, the secretary, we, a part of the Lewis and Clark expedition is pretty important. And so she was very happy to be there and she was very happy to translate.
There were so many languages, like she was married to, I remember his first name Charbonneau, and he spoke French and he spoke a couple of the other dialects of the tribes, but she's the one who understood Shoshone. And so, um, I do have a really sweet poem. Here, um, second Julia, um, cause they tell you how to pronounce her name, right.
And how not to pronounce it because, um, because it means bird woman, and they say she was 12 years old when she was kidnapped by had got some warriors and they called her second Giulia because they don't have a hard G in their language. So secretary area, either soft J or hard G she comes when she's called second.
Julia, I could Duco wife of Charbonneau. He carries her infant jaundice t-shirt but no, on a cradleboard plated lullabies in English that that's who French was the Hampton dreams. So Hampton is her language. Wow. And the steward and the, and, and this is where everyone would gather. In fact, I, I read that it was so warm there and the winds were so constant.
That would be the perfect place to dry out your salmon. And then you could store it for the winter and trade it, or you could just store it for the winter and eat it and it wouldn't go bad. That's a good thing. No, no refrigeration or anything bad. No. Right. So, um, and the funny thing with this, and it's, it's briefly alluded to in this section is Dave and I have good friends who for about a month and a half, we're staying at her sister's river house on the snake river, really close to this site.
So when we visited the story circles, we gathered with friends and we talked and shared stories. So. I kind of, there was something very universal about this gathering place. What you have to also know is there are, there's a dam McNary dam, not too far. And so really where the two confluence is used to merge together.
Um, it's now a big lake and so that part has changed. Um, but there's one of the story. Circles is just a story and it's on coyote circle. Notice how coyote keeps reappearing and here's, what's written. Coyote said, I am leaving you. I'm going back toward the sunrise, but I leave salmon for you every year.
They will come back up this river Shanuk silver Sockeye, steelhead, bull trout, and that's from the coyote and Lala wish a traditional Yakima and click a Tet Indian story. So important, you know, to the people there. Well, uh, what do you want to say about chief Timothy Park? Uh, nine miles west of Clarkston, Washington near the confluence of the snake and Clearwater rivers?
Well, this is, I think one of my favorites and it's probably because we had to drive the farthest together. So,
but it, it means that because it's so far away from any large cities that it's pretty Marlin said that this installation probably looks the most, like the same way that Lewis and Clark saw it when they came down here. Um, so, um, and this came out of a Clark's journal where he said, we're the Abrey mark, that not one tick of timber on the river, near the forks and, but a few trees for a great distance up the river.
And that was, um, October 10th, 1805 and Dave and I would, it took us seven or so hours to get there because we took the long way to go through another part of the Eastern part of Washington. Um, so we gave ourselves two nights in a cabin at chief Timothy Park. So they gave us lots of time to not be in a hurry.
And I was very grateful. So, um, I will read these three connected haiku and then I'll, um, go a little bit more. Okay. Okay. In. I think it's really empty. This is an island chief Timothy Park. It's a small island. You can get onto by a small bridge and it's surrounded by the snake river. So when you get to the listening circle and six jump and sail into the air between chirps of unseen birds, slight breeze cools us down low stone benches.
Perfect. To sit, listen, heed it's timeless message of river land and people Nez, Perce. That's the tribe also called their name is Nima pu. At the listening circle, I read the words transcribed from an as purse blessing ceremony. These instructions are carved into the lowest of the benches shaped in arcs three rows on one side, three on the other like ripples on water.
These long stone benches have faced north half face south, and this is what's written on them. And I might just add here. It was after my Ellyn went to the blessing ceremony that she decided how to build this spot. This amphitheater women sit facing north. Men sit facing south elders, sit facing west and no one is to walk behind them.
The east is left open to greet the new day. And then after that I write, I orient myself to the sun and find the dentures that faces north, which means I sit on the south side of the circle. The Nez Perce blessing ceremony requires us to find our place among the four directions and to sit silent and listen to what this place has to say.
Wow. So that's what visitors are listening to, whatever the place has. Hmm. And it's so quiet. It is so incredibly quiet. But you see that's on the one far side of the island. If you go back to the more developed side, it's like, um, it's not a state park. I think the army Corps of engineers, um, are leasing it to a recreation group.
So you can drive in RV. There you can camp there, you can rent one of their five cabins. Um, you can put like a rafter, a little fishing boat down a boat ramp and go into the snake river. But forever, wherever you look, there are no trees. It's just all these different kinds of basalt, formations and cliffs.
And it's quite beautiful. And I might say, as I'm talking about this place, the confluence website, which I do have on my website, anyone can just say confluence, project.org. Um, they've got some wonderful pictures of all these places, so you can get a visual take on the settings, which each one is so different.
That's good. Okay. So in your book, you include another place where there may be an installation or a landscape someday, and that the aforementioned Celilo park, right? Yes. So, um, so you already talked about it being the center of, uh, it was once the center of culture and commerce in the Northwest until the saliva falls were submerged in 1957, with the construction of the Dalles dam and the profound destruction of the Columbia river tribes way of life.
So this, this particular chapter in your book brings us back to she who watches exactly because this is what she, who watched his was watching. And, um, And when I was doing my research, I got so excited because I saw what the plan was by my Alynn. And then I saw that it was on hold. And so first it wasn't going to happen right away.
And then there's four tribes who have to agree. And then the four tribes agreed. And then in 2018, the ACMA, um, nation said, no, we're not going to do it. We're we're we're our grief is so deep. We just can't imagine bringing people here to see what isn't here or something to that effect. And, um, basically this is what I got from Colin Fogarty, the director of confluence, he says from the beginning, Mayalynn said, we're gonna take our, um, directions and permissions from the tribes.
And if the tribes saying no, The tribes say no, and we're just, we're not, we're not on our time. We're on, um, basically Indian time, um, tribe, indigenous time. They, um, anyway, so it's a very controversial falls. I mean, I mean, falls dam. And of course, when I moved out here, I had never. I wasn't around for Celilo falls.
I've met a couple people who were children and they saw it and they were, um, in awe of it, I guess there was enough water that it was more than Niagara falls. They came through on a daily basis and it was a major thoroughfare for returning salmon that go up both the Columbia and the snake and the clear water to do their spawning in spring or fall, depending on the, the species of fish.
Um, it was awful. So, um, the thing in my, in my section of this is I remember I, I mentioned I was with an educator's road trip by confluence. And what we did was we went to a powwow first and these, this palbo called pioneer. Was that at the warm Springs reservation. And this is where the soliloquies village tribes were relocated.
That it's, that is if they wanted to be relocated, some just stayed nearby near the river unofficially. So we had the, not the challenge, but the, um, I'm trying to get the right word. So we went to a celebration, nowhere near a river by river people. And then we got into our van and we headed back to where we parked our cars, sort of, kind of at Sandy river Delta, but it was a two hour trip between warm Springs.
And so I low park. So warm Springs is in the high desert of Oregon. And so two hours away down by the river is this kind of parking lot picnic area, um, where you can be where Celilo falls used to be. And, uh, I would like to just share the joy from the pal well of which there was much, and here's some link haiku, regalia, ready tribes gathered on grassy fields in soft moccasins, fringe deerskin dresses, Otter pelts, braided in hair, fancy jingle skirts, all dance to drumming women, men, children sing.
See, we are still here and that morning, that morning because Linda Minas was going to meet us down at Celilo village. She asked would be okay if she just stayed at the powwow. So she has a history cause her great. She's great-granddaughter to chief Tommy Thompson, who was the chief at Celilo village, but we met her at the museum of warm Springs and she told her story of living in Celilo village before and after the inundation.
When she was a girl, salmon, fishing was robust and the gathering of first foods from the Prairie's and foothills sustain them. In fact, these are the only foods her great grandfather ate, and here's a small haiku to him. Chief Tommy Thompson lived on salmon roots, berries to 112. Wow. I know. Longevity. But when we arrive at Soleil park, Soleil falls is gone.
So I hope park is a placeholder for where Celilo village used to be. And it's actually 11 miles east of a place called the dolls, Oregon. Also how the dolls dam got its name. So we say river made Placid. This is another haiku trouts it's stone rib cage beneath act while they're breathing. Um, silence, no sound at all.
It was said that the roar of Celilo could be heard for over two miles. This is the place where millions of salmon flailed and jumped up cataracts to swim upstream, to spawn and be caught by indigenous fishermen. This is a place where barter and trade would commence between all the tribes of the Columbia river system.
This is the place of VisionQuest burial grounds protected by basaltic clips, etched in pictographs and petroglyphs since time immemorial. This is the place of the pictograph petroglyph, cause she's both of she who watches shall glow. She watches this place forever. Wow. How about that? I know. Yes. Powerful.
And you end the book with your own site, seven field notes from home, which also serves as a powerful reflection on home. What is home? You talk about your hometown chagrin falls, Ohio and how its history is hauntingly like that, of the river track tribes along the Columbia river. Would you read a passage from this chapter?
Okay. Let's see. Um,
okay. The chagrin falls first white settlers arrived in 1833. The cascading river flowing through lush Woodlands soon changed into a manufacturing hub with multiple dams. These dams powered the sawmills that created lumber from the now cleared forests and drove the flour mills that ground, the grains grown from newly created farms in a one mile stretch of the chagrin river.
There were nine mills in small factories, and by the time my mother was born in 1924, chagrin falls had its own school system. And by the time I attended chagrin couldn't schools, there was no acknowledgement of the first people who called this land home. There was only a vague notion that a long time ago, Indians once lived here with no details about who or why, or when they left.
So easy not to know isn't it. And I, I did, I did have some phone calls with the chagrin falls, historical historical society, man. And he was the one who told me how chagrin falls got its name, which I won't have to go into. Um, but it's in my book. Uh, but they have a t-shirt that they sell there and you want to know what it says?
What does it okay. This has to do with the dams. So the front of the t-shirt says, damn damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn damn. I love this town. And then on the back, so there's a map. Every damn that was placed there in the early days. And they had this, they had this little poem on the back of the, of the t-shirt chagrin falls establish 1833, um, Middletown on the chagrin river, the river was the resource, the dams tamed it, the water wheels harnessed it.
The mills used the power, the factories produced goods, the community prospered, and they have the w one mile and they have all nine dams on a map and telling you when that dam was put in by a year and they were all built within a nine year period. I didn't know that. I mean, I knew a couple of the dams, but I didn't know about, so in a way that's how settlers clear the land and grind the grain and, and settle in.
And, and the thing is that was probably. Oh, I'll be like, well, actually that was all going on while Lewis and Clark were ahead and had already been in coming back. But, um, I just wanted to, as my own, going back in history, recognize that we all live near rivers and creeks and lakes, and I hope that they all have a history of indigenous people that were here before and, uh, anyway, to know their stories they do.
And, um, and another nice serendipitous thing is out here when I was looking for a sensitivity reader, um, you know, a native American person. I wasn't getting much luck with, um, the tribal members who I know our river tribal members and our poets because it, by now it was COVID and they each had perfectly.
Good reasons for not responding. And they were both very polite, but there was a woman who is from the Eastern Shawnee, who was the writer in residence at the Hugo house out here, which is a literary, um, writing center. And she's from Eastern Shawnee, which I'll tell you they were in Ohio. So I told her about my project and she, because she was the resident poet there, she agreed to look at my manuscript and give feedback.
And a perfect example of a sensitivity reader is I, once this is a line that she helped me change. One word on it says that the cascading river flowing through blush Woodlands. I originally said the Castillo Katie river flowing through Virgin Woodlands and she said, and I would change the word Virgin.
There were people there. So that's what I mean. It's great at it. I just wanted to end on that note. So that's excellent. Well, um, your website is and her c.com and that's where people can find your book. That's right. Great. Well, it's a, it's, it's a charming read and it's a, and as I said, at the beginning of this show, it's really beautifully designed.
You did a great job. Oh that I give full credit to our book designer, Dan D Schafer. And he worked with me for all during COVID. We were, um, I called the book, um, salmonberry press, because he helped me find a publishing house in Canada. Um, but we worked on how to put it together and what it might look like.
And he's brilliant. He is brilliant. So it's uh, oh, and can I also add, there are blank spaces between each of the sections. So if you're out here visiting any of these sites, you can add your own field notes. You know, I meant to ask you about that and even has a place for the date and the time for the gate and even, and there's cute little emojis for the weather that you can.
So. That was something. So, but for those of you who don't live near the Columbia or snake river, just find any river and just pencil in your own, um, responses. There's a company called field notes and they have this, um, quote, um, field notes. I'm not writing it down to remember it later. I'm writing it down to remember it now.
Oh, I know. I love that. Yeah. So there's a real immediacy of, this is what I experienced on this day, at this time and this season and this weather. And, um, and I've now visited all the sites a second time with a friend of mine except the one farthest away, because it is such a commitment of driving time.
You really need to stay overnight somewhere. Right? Yeah. Great. All right, well, thank you. Thank you for sharing, sharing your poetry, your pros and your stories. This has been terrific, and I really appreciate having you well, thank you. It was great to be here and it's www and hersey.com and, uh, be glad to share my book with anyone who wants it and it has a PayPal then Mo way of purchasing it.
Okay. Okay. And I will have a link in the show’s description. 
Okay, thank you. 
All right, well, thanks again. 
This is Kate Jones with The Gale Hill Radio Hour. Until next time, thanks for joining us. 
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