PSU Magazine Fall 1998

:QLUMBIA By Brian White the sight. He gave some of his photos to a newspaper reporter on the condi– tion that his name not be used. The following morning, Chaney's photos, and his name, appeared on page one of a Portland newspaper. Ed Chaney was fired. After that incident, Chaney remained a thorn in the side of state and federal agencies for years. He struggled to earn a living, having been labeled as something of a gadfly. The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) once offered Chaney a job– mainly to mollify him and keep him away from the media. It never worked, and Chaney went on to become what Hansen calls a "freelance conserva– tionist," offering his fisheries expertise to the Umatilla Tribal Commission and other natural resources groups. "We've heard lots of comments from Bonneville Power Administra– tion (BPA) officials, agency represen– tatives, and planning council members, but these other people in the background have contributed a lot and haven't had the recognition. This will help balance the historical perspective." Interviewer O'Rourke is leading efforts to create an oral history of the Northwest Power Planning Council, the 18-year-old planning and policy making body that grew out of the debate over the competing needs of native fisheries and hydroelectric devel– opment in the Basin. Interviews already are taking place with council founders and members, as well as supporters and opponents of the council. (. he gathering of oral histories by Strassmaier's team is just one component of the Columbia River Basin Project's focus. Researchers are also developing communiry histories and creating curriculums for high schools in Washington and Oregon that focus on the Columbia River, using math, science, literature, and history. The entire project is serving as a national pilot program, with funding provided by the Institute of Museum and Library Services in the U.S. Department of Education. In conjunction with the oral histories, project leaders are putting together a bibliography that will be accessible on the Internet. Up to 1,500 annotated citations will address This early 1900s photo from Moses ake, \\ 7 ashington, is part of a histor· ca.I exhibit going on the Web vww.ccrh.org ) for the Columbia Rh er Basin Project. such topics as the fur trade and explo– ration, Native American history along the lower Columbia, and a history of salmon fisheries . SU-Vancouver history Professor Laurie Mercier, program director at CCRH, is guiding the project's community history leg. Working with dozens of local resi– dents, she developed a comprehensive exhibit of Moses Lake, Washington, which will soon be available on the center's Web site. A similar commu– nity history for Sandpoint, Idaho, is also going on the Web. Histories of Camas, Washington; Cottage Grove, Oregon; Umatilla, Oregon; Native Indian riverfront communities; and the north Portland river-linked community of Kenton are in the offing. By placing these histories on the Web, Mercier hopes to encourage communities throughout the Basin to share their histories, exchange infor– mation, and learn from each other. "We want to expand the way people view the Columbia River Basin," says Mercier. "People need to look at the watershed as a whole, to see how communities have experi– enced history differently because of their location in the Basin. We're especially looking at the period after the 1930s-the era of big dam building." Mercier has been working on the histories with Deb Sutphen, holder of a post-doctoral Columbi River Fellowship at Portland State; Donna Sinclair, a PSU history graduate student; and several WSU-Vancouver undergraduate students. Events in the Columbia River Basin have created a certain Pacific Northwest image unique in America; unity has not always been the result. Thanks to this one-of-a-kind history project, a more complete understand– ing of this Pacific Northwest may yet emerge. D (Brian White is a staff writer in PSU's Office of Marketing and Communications.) FALL 1998 PSU MAGAZINE 17