River
by Fern Stewart
A River has movement as it is pulled towards the center of our earth: this essay will flow with similarity— thought and memories, fish and canoes, plastic and water— all follow the current. The water flows over and around stone and wood and nurtures plants on the water's edge: this essay will flow over and around ideas while nurturing them in a similar way. There is no conclusion, as a River does not end unless forced to do so. Instead it mixes with other waterways, inevitably connecting every being and piece of Earth to another. I hope your thoughts jumble up like a hole in the River. I hope your reading experience is guided, yet holds on to the freedom of flow.
Fluidity
is to be expected by a formation that connects every stream, creek, and glacier with the oceans. Every River is like an ever-changing fingerprint upon the earth; no two are ever the same. The Great Divide splits the direction of flow through what is now known as the Rocky Mountains, stretching itself towards the arctic and down towards the equator. Rivers on either side have differing destinations and two droplets which fall as partners may add themselves to distant oceans. A journey lies within this destiny- resembling a human (black and white and red) life as it meanders, flows with more speed, and then takes its time to let the fish swim in peace. A River “is always changing, causing mistakes and getting lost,” (Kedzie 2006). Rocks stress the water, and in turn, the liquid shapes the stone, breaking down the rough edges and creating more harmony over time between the two materials. Igneous rocks— basalt and granite— are resistant to weathering, but the water changes them. Metamorphic rocks— marble and schist— sometimes resist smooth edges and become more rectangular in the current. Sedimentary rocks— limestone and sandstone— seem to enjoy the mothering of the River and allow it to shape them quickly (River 2019). Remaining pieces flow with the River, sorting along the way. All of the land bound species of our historical earth have seen the Rivers, and in turn, the Rivers have supported ebbing ecosystems over many moons. The first therapsids emerged from the River’s edge approximately 267 Million years ago (Britannica), while the King Fisher has been around for 600,000 years (Belted). Every cell of life down to the most precious of prokaryotic organisms is somehow connected to the Rivers. Rivers have lives of their own, though far grander in time than any organism. Our own essence is intertwined with Rivers in a deeply rooted way: the flow of water opens up possibilities for the spread of culture and knowledge, the water’s nutrients grow the food that nourishes us, and the River simply reminds us to find use of more than just vision to notice life’s movement. Smell the natural odors of algae and excrement. Taste the mist flying when the River must fall. See the pink glow of a setting sun reflecting off its stillness. Feel the breeze that sometimes accompanies the River on its travels. Hear the ever present, yet ever moving clash and harmony of water.
The River asks you to breathe when you sit with it. Some Rivers reveal their lungs, moving upwards when the moon is closest to earth, pulling the water towards it… the water reaches back to no avail (Tide). Yet, Rivers can fill any lung. When our bodies are entirely surrounded by the water, and “the inspiratory drive is too high to resist,” the River reconnects with its water found within us (Szpilman et al. 2012, 2103). Around 0.7% of human deaths worldwide are caused by drowning— 500,000 people per year (Szpilman et al. 2012, 2102). In New Zealand, around 23% of drowning fatalities are Māori, despite being only 15% of the country’s population (Phillips 2020, 1). Their people have developed a Wai (water) safety model, Wai Puna, to incorporate traditional knowledge into interactions with Rivers so that the water moisturizes the exterior of the body and does not find its way within (Philips 2020, 1). Sometimes there is more benefit with interacting with skin or wood to separate us from the River. Rivers uphold cedar (which give themselves as vessels of transportation) canoes, which serve indigenous, “liaisons between the land and water… capable of passing down knowledge and traditions,” as they flow with the River (Marshall 2011, 16). Motorboats, of less grounded and more colonial structure, move against the current’s natural way. We fish and innertube— recreate and survive. As of late, some have of our own have attempted to uphold Rivers with dams- not as a parallel to aid in a River’s survival, but selfishly for our own (a predominantly colonial endeavor). Indigenous peoples are displaced as what little land is left for them is flooded by a confused River: 1.13 million acres of tribal land from the reservoirs of 424 dams (Randell et al. 2023). Migration patterns and water chemistry are changed: the flow is broken (Hydropower: EIA). Dams hold up a false sense of colonial permanence, where we believe we have gained control over the River, yet nothing human is ever-lasting. Rivers move through this middleground between impermanence and perpetuation. Dam removal, on our part, can help to reintroduce natural fluidity to the River; the blood of the land can flow again without clotting. Dam removal is a key form of decolonization that brings lifeblood back to tribal communities too (Fox et al. 2022). The River finds its flow again while salmon, bacteria, and humans begin to heal. There is a thin boundary, if any at all, between fluidity and
Stillness
The River’s water is always maneuvering in one general direction, swirling along the way. It does, always find the path to follow though, and maintains a peculiar sense of tranquility, even within the most rushed of waters. Sometimes the River decides to rest near the bank, forming an eddy which River-goers can also find respite in. The River-dependant ecosystems also perpetuate the water’s stillness, as long as we don’t disrupt them through overfishing. Flies and bass hold a dependence on the River’s consistency for mating seasons and food supply. Our own species has depended upon the River’s consistency for millennia. There are deeply rooted traditions, especially within indigenous communities that are directly intertwined with the River and its promise to continue: fishing, irrigating, spiritually relating, etc. Colonialism takes advantage of this stillness. It privatizes and attempts to control these living bodies. It knows (or assumes) there will be a perennial supply of fish and energy; it seeks to quantify the River by its depth/dimensions and consumable resources. “Discovered” Rivers had their names taken from them and were adopted by colonialists to be proportioned on maps for settlement. Thankfully, Rivers retain their native name twice as often as mountain ranges (Baumgarter 2023).
The Bitterroot River
did not. No elder knows the original Salish name for the River I grew up on. Bitterroot was coined by Lewis and Clark after the purple flower with an unpleasant taste. The River, which flows from the South towards the North from Lost Trail Pass into what is now known as Missoula, Montana, holds the water of the Selway-Wilderness. Each flake of snow and ounce of rain eventually finds its way into these waters to move to the Clark Fork, then the Pend Oreille, to the Columbia, and eventually to the Pacific (current names used). The Bitterroot supports the CutThroat Trout, Bald Eagles, Stoneflies, Whitetail deer, and white men in boats. However, it used to support the Nez Perce and Salish Tribes. They would fish and work with the waters, thus creating a connection to any land the River touched on its way to the open ocean. In August of 1877, the Nez Perce were forced to flee up River, towards Lost Trail Pass - the same split in the mountains that Lewis and Clark scrambled through. The River led the Nimiipuu, or “people” in the Nez Perce tongue, on a southerly route that should have held safety (Nez Perce 2024). Over that pass (on the Great Divide), the water runs towards the other side of the continent— towards the Mississippi and then into the Atlantic. The pass opens out into a pristine valley lined with trees under the vast sky; the Big Hole River runs through it. On the morning of August 9th, near the River, 90 peaceful Nez Perce, mainly women and children, were ambushed, shot, and killed (HISTORY). Not even their spilled blood, containing the Bitterroot River, could make it back to their homeland’s headwaters. It was forced to flow through foreign lands to a disparate ocean. The Nez Perce are now located in North-Central Idaho as a federally recognized tribe with over 3,500 members (Nez Perce 2024). Today, the Salish and Kootenai tribes are located in the Flathead Reservation which holds the Flathead River— a sister to the Bitterroot; they move towards the Pacific as one. These Rivers have seen more than one human life will ever know - these Rivers know us better than we know ourselves. We will forever be intimately intertwined, from the inter-cultural level to the most personal level when our tears become one with runoff; we share everything with these waters. There is something quite grounding about knowing a River has preceded and will proceed you. I am thankful, in my short lifespan, to know the Bitterroot. Maybe it will find a new name or remember its native one someday. When it “floods”, the River is remembering. “All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was,” (Morrison 1995, 99). Maybe we can remember how to live alongside the River too…
Works Cited
Baumgarter, Alice L. “The Rivers of America: Colonialism and the History of Naming.” Journal of Early American History 13, no. 1 (December 16, 2022): 3–30. https://doi.org/10.1163/18770703-12020002.
“Belted Kingfisher Overview, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology.” Accessed June 1, 2024. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Belted_Kingfisher/overview.
Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. "therapsid." Encyclopedia Britannica, March 6, 2024. https://www.britannica.com/animal/therapsid.
Butler, Virginia L. “Where Have All the Native Fish Gone? The Fate of Fish That Lewis and Clark Encountered on the Lower Columbia River.” Oregon Historical Quarterly 105, no. 3 (2004): 438–63. https://doi.org/10.1353/ohq.2004.0034.
Fox, Coleen A, Nicholas J Reo, Brett Fessell, and Frank Dituri. “Native American Tribes and Dam Removal: Restoring the Ottaway, Penobscot and Elwha Rivers” 15, no. 1 (2022).
HISTORY. “Nez Perce Fight Battle of the Big Hole | August 9, 1877.” Accessed June 4, 2024. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/nez-perce-fight-battle-of-big-hole.
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Kedzie, S. (2006). Alagnak Wild River : an illustrated guide to the cultural history of the Alagnak Wild River. National Park Service, Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alagnak Wild River.
Lee, D. (2010). Listening to the Land: The Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness as Oral History. The Oral History Review, 37(2), 235–248. https://doi.org/10.1093/ohr/ohq093
Morrison, Toni. “The Site Of Memory,” 1995
Muñoz, Marissa. “River as Lifeblood, River as Border.” In Indigenous and Decolonizing Studies in Education, edited by Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Eve Tuck, and K. Wayne Yang, 1st ed., 62–81. Routledge, 2018. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429505010-5.
Nez Perce Tribe -. “Culture - Nez Perce Tribe,” March 20, 2024. https://nezperce.org/.
Phillips, Chanel Ph.D. (2020) "Wai Puna: An Indigenous Model of Māori Water Safety and Health in Aotearoa, New Zealand," International Journal of Aquatic Research and Education: Vol. 12: No. 3, Article 7.
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Randell, Heather, and Andrew Curley. “Dams and Tribal Land Loss in the United States.” Environmental Research Letters 18, no. 9 (September 1, 2023): 094001. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/acd268.
“River Rocks ‘Riverstone’ Aquascape | Hardscaping Guide,” September 20, 2019. https://bantam.earth/river-rocks-riverstone/.
Szpilman, David, Joost J.L.M. Bierens, Anthony J. Handley, and James P. Orlowski. “Drowning.” New England Journal of Medicine 366, no. 22 (May 31, 2012): 2102–10. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMra1013317.
“Tide.” Accessed June 3, 2024. https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/tide.