THE WILD BEAUTY of America's Northwest imprints land and people in a special way. Nature usually unfurls its splendors in remote places, far from urban clusters; so also, in parts of the Northwest. Yet on the rim of Puget Sound and along the lower Columbia millions of people - workers in the ports and mills and skyscrapers - live within comfortable reach of spectacular vistas ... the Olympics, the Columbia Gorge, the North Cascades. And on those prized days when the Pacific mists clear, peo¬ple in Seattle and Portland need go no farther than their windows to gaze on Mount Rainier or Mount Hood, floating visions in gossamer white.
Photographer Bob Madden and the writers of this book explore not only the spectaculars but also nature's bounty, the source of daily bread. It is a world out of kilter. Cynthia Ramsay finds loggers confronting declining forests - and suddenly, a collapsed market. Fishermen wonder where the salmon went. Government regulations come under attack, and bitterness lingers - on both sides - over court decisions enforcing Indian treaty rights in the salmon waters. Farmland gives way to spreading suburbia in Oregon's most wanted valley, the Willamette. In the green valleys and tawny wheat fields, even on the thirsty desert, farmers have sent deep personal roots into the land. Says one grower: "When you work soil your parents. . . gave their hearts to . . . it's much more than simply business."
Bill Richards delves into the beauty and the power of the Columbia, and visits lonely snow-bound hamlets and a crowded mining boomtown in the Rockies, mountains holding the promise of the still-raw frontier. Icy summits, volcanic rumblings, a battered seacoast - these flaunt the Northwest's grandeur. The desert speaks more softly. Yet Mark Miller heard it: "There was no sound at all ... the desert silence so total that cowboys call it a noise. Then the wind stirred: airy sighs and whispers in the juniper boughs, faint whistles in the sage. ... the desert spoke to me. ... the voice was the most soothing I have ever heard."
And on the devastated slopes of Mount St. Helens Rowe Findley hears a killdeer calling its name and understands nature's promise: Life will return.
On a clear day the cone of Mount Hood comes into view, as history plies the Columbia with the Portland - last of the sternwheel tugs. Retired from tug duty after 34 years of shuttling ships, the steamer faces a more leisurely future hauling tourists.