Rooster Rock State Park

Rooster Rock State Park. WHEELS of fortune. The glistening tide of salmon returning annually to spawn in the Columbia River and its tributaries was of legendary proportions. For thousands of years, American Indians used spears and dip nets to harvest this seasonal bounty. But fishwheels quickly replaced spears and dip nets as Euro-Americans cashed in on the swimming wealth. , The first fishwheel scooped salmon on the Columbia in 1879. Seventy-six wheels of fortune reaped a bountiful harvest by the early 1900s, supplying fish to nearly 50 canneries. The yields were staggering - in 1881, Frank Warren's fishwheel, located a few miles east, took 10,000 salmon in a single day. In 1883 alone, Columbia River canneries processed over 20,000 tons of Chinook Salmon. Oregon banned fishwheels in 1926 for economic and environmental reasons. They were discontinued on the Washington side of the river in 1934. Today, some of the Columbia's salmon species face extinction. , There Has Been Something , sometimes it is a song , sometimes a whisper , sometimes it appears to be an animal , then other times , weeping , i hear it , that has been something , that has disappeared , from my earth , i'm not sure what it was , but sometimes at night , i can hear it in the wind , or it comes to me , in my dreams , like , the smell of salmon cooking , Ed Edmo, poet, Shoshone-Banncock Tribe, 1988 .