THROUGH MILLENNIA OF LAVA FLOWS and erosive flooding in the Columbia Basin, a river emerged. The Snake River writhes some thousand miles from Wyoming through southern Idaho, forming the Oregon border before curving into southeast Washington, where its waters meet the Columbia River and then, eventually, the ocean. It journeys from the Rocky Mountains through the desert, punctuated by dams.
A river is not a body, but people have always seen a resemblance. It has a head(waters), veins and arteries. Salmon enter the Snake River the same as nutrients to a living being: through the mouth. After swimming miles from the Pacific Ocean to the cold home waters from which they came, they spawn and die, leaving empty eyed carcasses bobbing at river’s edge. Studies have last fall.