10 DECEMBER 1, 2012 SMOKE SIGNALS

Chuck Wi11iams' 1ife in the trenchesBy Ron KartenSmoke Signals staff writer

Chuck Williams, 69, is likely theTribe' s most prolific author and

photographer.

The list of his publications and

photography shows is long and com- prehensive. Subjects include Tribal,

natural and political events of the

Columbia River Gorge and beyond.

He needs six pages to list all of the

Oregon and Northwest celebrations

he photographs regularly. He has visited celebrations and

festivals up and down the westcoast," says David Lewis, Grand

Ronde Museum Curator and Cul-

tural Liaison. "He has perhaps 30

years of photos of these festivals. I

think he has the largest collection

of images of these cultural events

in the world."

Williams' 1980 book, " Bridge of

the Gods, Mountains of Fire: A

Return to the Columbia Gorge,"

an illustrated history told fromthe perspectives of both his Indian

and pioneer ancestors, is arguablythe best book about the Columbia

Gorge and has long been out ofprint. He has been angling foryears to find the means to publish

a second edition.

He wrote the book in the late

1970s when he had moved back to

the family property near BeaconRock in the Gorge on the Columbia

River to write, and also to be near

his father who was having healthissues.

Our family had several parcelsof land in the area, some on the

river, where our mother was born

and our great - grandmother, known

as Indian Mary, (Kalliah was herIndian name), lived," says Wil-

liams' cousin, Valerie Alexander.

It is right next to the train tracks

and was also on the trail by theriver. I heard that they used tohear the horses brush against the

cabin walls when they came up thetrail."

The road (that goes by the cabinsite and an orchard) is called Indian

Mary Road and the year -round wa- ter source for the refuge is Indian

Mary Creek," Williamssays.

The will to the prop- erties was very compli-

cated, Alexander says,

and in order to preserve

the home site on the

river ( Indian Mary' sVancouver allotment),

the family sold it to theTrust for Public Land.

Williams and other

members of the family, including his cousinand Alexander' s sis-

ter, Marilyn Portwood,

worked on the effort

that helped preserve

the land and ultimatelyconvinced Congress to

establish the area as

the Franz Lake Nation-

al Wildlife Refuge.

Swans and wapato

our potato) have now

returned," he says.

Williams' father,

Clyde, knew a lot of the family his- tory, Alexander says, and passedthat information on to Chuck "who

also did a lot of research and wrote

his book, recording the family his- tory along with the history of theGorge.

I have checked it with manyother resources and I think his book

is still the most complete and cor-

rect in existence. He helped manyof the family feel proud of theirheritage. Some had been concealingtheir Indian heritage as they weretreated poorly by the white peoplesome of the time there."

In company with countless art- ists, Williams' talents have not

translated into personal riches. On

the contrary, today his art is push- ing him out of his home. He lives inThe Dalles in a house that was once

the Columbia Gorge Gallery, show- ing and selling his photography andhis books, together making up hisAmerican West Archives project.

I'm all too aware," he says, "that

Edward Curtis, the now - famous

photographer who photographed

Tumulth's oldest daughter in the

Tribal Elder Chuck Williams sits on the front porch of his gallery- turned -home

in The Dalles. The house was once the Columbia Gorge Gallery where he

showed and sold his photography and his books.

Photos courtesy of Chuck Williams

Bella and Tomas Beal of McMinnville

ride a giant rocking horse at the

Shrewsbury Renaissance Faire in

Kings Valley. David Lewis, GrandRonde Museum Curator and Cultural

Liaison, said Chuck Williams has

visited celebrations and festivals

up and down the West Coast andhe thinks Williams has the largest

collection of images of these

cultural events in the world.

Gorge, died penniless in L.A."

The gallery is now closed to thepublic and the backlog of his pho- tography includes 70, 000 colorslides that he has yet to review.

Williams began adding digitalphotography to his collection in2005 and he continues to photo-

graph with slide film, hard as it is

getting to be found and processed. His go -to source for slide film these

days is eBay. His place is four blocks off the

Columbia River upriver from where

his Grand Ronde ancestors once

fished in a wide open and wild river

that spawned 100 -pound salmon

before the dams went up. Spiritually," he says, " the Co-

lumbia Gorge is our home."

His father' s great - grandfather,

Chief Tumulth, signed the 1855

Grand Ronde Willamette ValleyTreaty and was later hung by then - Lt. Phil Sheridan.

Williams remembers a grade

school field trip to the SonomaMission when his family moved toPetaluma, Calif. In an early displayof his refusal to yield on matters of

conscience, Williams refused to go

into the Phil Sheridan room there.

He told the teacher about Chief

Tumulth and the hanging. The teacher relayed the history to

Williams' mom, Bettye, as fanciful,

but the teacher was barking up the

wrong tree.

My mom," he says, " married mydad when it was barely legal fora non - Indian to marry an Indian, when you were ostracized for it.

I tell people, `No wonder I ended

up so screwed up.' My father wasa conservative Indian who loved

technology and engineering, andmy mom was a left -wing WASPwho loved nature and art. She was

the one who mainly took me fishingwhen I was a kid."

Williams took off in life as a com-

bination of the two.

After graduating from high schoolin 1961, Williams couldn't afford

a four -year college, so he took en-

gineering classes at a community

college for a year and began work-

ing full-time as a draftsman /tech- nician.

My father had me doing me- chanical drawing for him since Iwas a young kid," Williams says, " soI had that skill to fall back on until

computers replaced draftsmen."

Williams worked himself into an

engineering position with college

graduates working for him at twoof the nation' s premiere technol-

ogy laboratories — Milwaukie,

Wisc. -based Johnson Controls and

Richmond, Va. -based Robertshaw

Controls. For six years, three at

each company, Williams worked onNASA and Boeing projects.

Not for the last time, the politics

got to him.

As a way to give back to the coun- try, he moved on to work throughthe Peace Corps in Dominican

Republic in 1968 -69 and VISTA in

El Paso, Texas, in 1969 -70. After-

wards, he spent six years touringthe national parks, living out ofhis van and mastering the photo- graphic arts.

During that time, he visited allof the national parks proper in the

contiguous states, plus the major-

ity of other National Parks Systemunits, he says.

He also was named National

Parks expert for Friends of the

Earth founder David Brower, the

subject of John McPhee' s book,

Encounters with the Archdruid."

He took inspiration from Brower,

who later wrote the introduction to

Williams' Gorge book.

He was my idol," Williams says. He turned the Sierra Club into

a major political force, but was

thrown out due to controversies

over finances and policy." Brower

then formed Friends of the Earth,

which became a very effective en- vironmental group because Browerattracted so many young, dedicatedidealists," Williams says.

One of my main goals withFriends of the Earth was to try toget large samples of the country'smain ecosystems protected in na-

tional parks as a genetic bank for

disappearing plants and animals," Williams says.

For the next few years, Williams

enjoyed a golden time. He felt he

had struck pay dirt in 1976 whenJimmy Carter had just been electedand Carter's Interior Secretary Ce-

See CHUCK

continued on page 11

DECEMBER 1, 2012

Cultural Trust Board

seeking grant applicantsThe Tribe's Cultural Trust Board received $6,359 for the 2013

grant year and is now accepting grant applications through Dec. 15.

The board will finalize grant awards by Jan. 10 and applicantswill receive notification of their grant application status by Jan. 15.

This is the earliest the board has ever opened the grant cycle to

allow more time for grantees to complete their cultural projects

since final reporting is due to the Oregon State Cultural Trusteach year by Aug. 31.

Since 2009, when the Grand Ronde Cultural Trust Board started

giving cultural grants, it has funded individuals' participation inTribal Canoe Journey, sewing classes, moccasin making classes, anethno botany project, a Chinuk Wawa project, research for a bookabout Tribal member families, camas digging, huckleberry picking, regalia making, wood carving and other cultural projects.

Grand Ronde Cultural Trust Board members include McDaniel,

Contreras, Vice Chair Betty Bly, Secretary Stephanie Wood andboard member Claudia Leno.

Education offers Chinuk Wawa classes

The Tribe's Cultural Education Department offers adult Chinuk

Wawa language classes from 5 to 6: 30 p.m. Monday and Wednesdayin Room 207 of the Tribal Education Building.

Language classes can be taken for college credit or fun.

For more information, call 503 - 879 -2249 or 503- 437 -4599.

SMOKE SIGNALS 11

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And if times of lonelinesshnng sorrow and dismay,

Dari' w despair, fol, I am I here...

I;at fZ ILNI O CfFamily and friends — Nora Kimsey went home Sept. 7, 2011. She was

102 years old. Nora was a quiet lady, never asking for anything. Shecared about her family and friends. Nora planned her own funeral

not wanting to burden us or by any memorial or hardship on anyone. Nora wanted us just to remember her life with us.

Margaret Provost

Williams co- founded Salmon CorpsCHUCK continued

from page 10

cil Andrus sought out Williams' pri-

orities for national parks. Twelve

of his 13 " wish list" items received

National Parks System protection

as a result.

Giving protection to these wishlist items also cleared out the back-

log of National Parks legislation, Williams says, " so that protection

for other proposed parks, includingthe Columbia Gorge, could finallybe considered."

It was also during this time thathe determined to finish his college

degree. In 1973, a month before he

turned 30, he received a bachelor

of arts degree in Expressive Arts

from Sonoma State University inCalifornia.

While working on the Gorgebook in the late 1970s, Williams

co- founded the Columbia Gorge

Coalition, the grass -roots groupthat began the campaign to save

the Columbia Gorge National Sce-

nic Area. After years of fighting, his idealism hit the hard edge of a

longtime Oregon reality. Protection for the Gorge ran head

first into a Portland society classthat from the beginning of thecentury had controlled virtuallyall environmental efforts, Williams

says.

They favored timber interests, utilities and moneyed interests,"

he says.

As a result, still today Oregonhas fallen well behind neighboringstates in protecting the flora andfauna.

While 4. 4 percent ofWashington

state and 5 percent of California

are in the National Park System,

S .7.

F ,

i

r

1

Photo courtesy of Chuck Williams

Asian - American drumming ensemble Portland Taiko performs at theObonfest at the Oregon Buddhist Temple in Portland.

only 0. 3 percent of Oregon is," Wil- liams says.

It wasn't long before developmentbegan in the Columbia Gorge Na-

tional Scenic Area.

Instead of a real park," he says,

we got a zoning bill based onOregon' s land -use planning. So the

wealthy are still able to move tothe Gorge and build their McMan-

sions."

In 1986, in debt after fightingthe Gorge battle, Williams went to

work for the Columbia River Inter -

Tribal Fish Commission, where he

first began to photograph people

and celebrations. He notes, rue-

fully, that back in the day when hefirst started shooting, he had oppor- tunities to photograph The Grate-

ful Dead and Janis Joplin, amongmany cultural icons, but was still anature photographer - purist.

In addition to his work protect-

ing and restoring salmon runs atthe fish commission, Williams co-

founded Salmon Corps, an Ameri-

Corps program for Native American

youth.

Unfortunately, Salmon Corpsno longer exists, but hundreds of

Indian kids got to go to college be-

cause of it — and I'm probably moreproud of setting it up than anythingelse I've done."

His political efforts in environ-

mental issues have brought him

into conflict with many of the best - known names in the environmental

movement today. He is a determined and relentless

activist for native rights, for envi-

ronmental health and for the legacyof the Grand Ronde Tribe in the

Columbia Gorge," says Lewis. " He

has a wealth of experiences in all of

these areas and has sacrificed his

own economic well -being in defenseof these ideals. Some of his books are

self- financed and all of the proceeds

have gone toward defending thelands of his people, the Cascades.

Without his selfless activism, I don't

know if we would have a scenic Co-

lumbia Gorge today."