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National Geographic : 1960 Apr
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KODACHROME© NATIONALGEOGRAPHICSOCIETY Twin Crowns of the Two Sisters Cap the Columbia's Gorge Near Wallula A landmark on the east bank, this eroding butte stands 12 miles south of the Colum bia's confluence with the Snake River. There Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, first American explorers to cross the continent, caught sight of the Columbia in 1805. Sacagawea, a Shoshoni Indian girl, helped the party through the Rockies. dynamics of fish, to develop "ski jumps" over a dam. Ocean-bound fingerlings suffer high mortality passing through turbines and over roaring spillways. I saw a salmon tested on a "treadmill"-to learn how long he can battle a current-and other fish "steered" by lights (which they don't like) and electrical shock. In an oceanography laboratory I met "the man who controls the rivers and regulates the tides." And before my startled eyes the waters of Puget Sound did rise and fall, rivers flooded, currents swirled, all in miniature. "We can set this model for the tidal sched ule of any season-or any year," Senior Ocean ographer John Lincoln told me. Lincoln pushed a button. Dye flowed in a river. This enables scientists to study cur rents and trace the paths of pollution, one of the biggest headaches of Washington's 30-million-dollar salmon industry. Working together, British Columbia and 488 Washington periodically close commercial fishing grounds to permit salmon to reach the spawning streams. And limits keep sport fishermen in check. Alone exempt from some regulations are Washington's Indian tribes, dependent on salmon since time out of mind. The State has 45 tribes in all-12,000 strong-on 21 reservations. Just as the Cas cades cleave Washington climatically, so were they a cultural divide for indigenous man. In dians on the east rode horses, lived as nomads, wore feathers. Coastal Indians dwelt in vil lages, got around by canoe, thought feather headdresses were for the birds. Today the Yakima "long braids" of central Washington farm their fields and vacation by automobile, much as their white neighbors do. And in the coastal Indian villages, I found TV antennas atop the modest houses, kids in dungarees and T shirts riding bikes on paved streets. In picturesque Lapush, where Quil eute men were cleaning nets, I spotted a cedar canoe named Spaghetti. In the Taholah home
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