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National Geographic : 1974 Dec
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pure and tumbling, cascading down the slopes of the Rockies like liquid jewelry of apple green jade. From Columbia Lake the river courses 500 miles through a blue-forested Canadian al pine wilderness-a wilderness being invaded by powerhouses and reservoirs. For 500 miles more the Columbia winds through rolling Washington State wheatland, digging her canyon deep through volcanic rock-the sere land on either side coming to life with new towns, new industries, and new farms, all thriving on water and power from the river. Gathering tributaries from most of Idaho, Washington, and Oregon and parts of Mon tana, Wyoming, Nevada, and Utah, the Co lumbia cuts through the Cascade Range, flanked by lush forests and watched over by the white-capped volcanic cones of Mount Hood, Mount Adams, and Mount St. Helens. She rolls onward past the river industries of Portland, Vancouver, and Longview, flows beneath the hulls of oceangoing ships, washes lush island farmland, and moves majesti cally to meet at last the maker of her summer rains and winter snows, the Pacific Ocean (map, following page). Along the way I met people who fear for the future of this queen of western waters. Others seem glad to have found her, for themselves, in time. Coming from many places, they are able to live and work here be cause the Columbia is developing. They love the river for what she still is, and hope she'll never change. They know she will, though. They themselves are helping to change her. Switzerland Once Looked Like This High in the Canadian Selkirks I looked down a glacier toward the thickly forested Columbia valley. With me was Guy Messerli, a mountain guide from Switzerland. "You could drop my entire native land into this Columbia River corner of Canada," he said. "This is what Switzerland must have looked like long ago, before there were so many people." 823 helps build a third powerhouse (foreground), whose turbines will boost Grand Coulee's total output to 6,280,000 kilowatts, making it the world's No. 1 producer of hydroelectricity. NATIONALGEOGRAPHIC PHOTOGRAPHER JAMESP. BLAIR(BELOW)
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