Palouse River and Snake River Canyons
Last night we “gained” an hour of time by changing from Daylight Saving to Standard Time. The only overt change was the degree of light at breakfast, but as the day progressed, we repeatedly encountered the concept and scale of time on several levels.
In the 1950’s Lower Monumental Dam backed water up into the mouth of the Palouse River, drowning rapids traversed 197 years ago by Lewis and Clark, and inundating the ancient salmon fishery they saw here. The backwaters also flooded the Marmes Rock shelter, at that time the oldest inhabited human habitation known in North America, dating back some 9,000 years. Our kayak and zodiac tours cruised past the Marmes site, and entered the Palouse canyon as it was before the dam was built. There we saw mule deer, elk, and coyote, animals of the past and present in these parts. The still water and mirror reflections evoked a feeling of “timeless time”.
A bus trip to Palouse Falls got us thinking about the great glacial floods of 15,000 to 13,000 years ago. The 185-foot waterfall and its huge plunge pool bear testimony to the catastrophic nature of this landscape’s origin, and the relatively recent timing (in geological terms) of these extraordinary events.
The floodwater record is etched into the extensive rocks of the Columbia flood basalt flows, dating back 15 to 17 million years, and these in turn overlay much older substrates. Our cruise down the Snake River after lunch passed the spectacular cliffs and rockslides of black volcanic rock from those remote times.
In later afternoon, Tracy Laevelle presented a talk on some of the oral and written history of life and custom in this region. Here, time partially assumed a circular form, with respect to recurrent themes of spiritual connections and renewal. Thus, the circular time of some human thought was superimposed over the linear, sequential time of geology and conventional history.
Because of the clock change, it was dark when we reached Ice Harbor Dam, the lowest such structure on the Snake River. Daylight time was gone, and we were back in the long dark that this time of year presents.
Last night we “gained” an hour of time by changing from Daylight Saving to Standard Time. The only overt change was the degree of light at breakfast, but as the day progressed, we repeatedly encountered the concept and scale of time on several levels.
In the 1950’s Lower Monumental Dam backed water up into the mouth of the Palouse River, drowning rapids traversed 197 years ago by Lewis and Clark, and inundating the ancient salmon fishery they saw here. The backwaters also flooded the Marmes Rock shelter, at that time the oldest inhabited human habitation known in North America, dating back some 9,000 years. Our kayak and zodiac tours cruised past the Marmes site, and entered the Palouse canyon as it was before the dam was built. There we saw mule deer, elk, and coyote, animals of the past and present in these parts. The still water and mirror reflections evoked a feeling of “timeless time”.
A bus trip to Palouse Falls got us thinking about the great glacial floods of 15,000 to 13,000 years ago. The 185-foot waterfall and its huge plunge pool bear testimony to the catastrophic nature of this landscape’s origin, and the relatively recent timing (in geological terms) of these extraordinary events.
The floodwater record is etched into the extensive rocks of the Columbia flood basalt flows, dating back 15 to 17 million years, and these in turn overlay much older substrates. Our cruise down the Snake River after lunch passed the spectacular cliffs and rockslides of black volcanic rock from those remote times.
In later afternoon, Tracy Laevelle presented a talk on some of the oral and written history of life and custom in this region. Here, time partially assumed a circular form, with respect to recurrent themes of spiritual connections and renewal. Thus, the circular time of some human thought was superimposed over the linear, sequential time of geology and conventional history.
Because of the clock change, it was dark when we reached Ice Harbor Dam, the lowest such structure on the Snake River. Daylight time was gone, and we were back in the long dark that this time of year presents.
