As my boys and I sat on the crumbling bridge and the water thundered down the dam's side and falls, I had such a feeling of melancholy.
This beautiful site was once traversed by 5 species of Pacific Salmon and Steelhead. The power they had to posses to get past this barrier must have been a sight to have seen.
Little Falls on the Spokane River once had fish passage at this dam that was the first on the Spokane System, albeit poor at that. Grand Coulee took that all away in 1939.
Like a part of a story taken away before it ever should have, it just feels eery. This section of the Spokane feels haunted, the ghosts of what was hangs over the area.
Little Falls on the Spokane was a place of extreme cultural significance to the native tribes of our area. Upwards of 300,000 fish were estimated to have been harvested annually on the Spokane system, and Little Falls was one of 8 significant encampment and harvest sites on the river
The angler in me wishes deeply to have had a chance to have seen and experienced it first hand.
All the other parts of me thinks, and hopes that we find a way to appease the ghosts of yesteryear that hang like a blanket of heavy fog over this place.
No comments:
Post a Comment