370 million years ago, the geologic story of what would become our beloved landscapes of Washington took a mighty turn. For 400 million years, the eastern flank of today's state had been the passive margin of the continent. No earthquakes or volcanoes here, just a quiet coastline. The placid waters accumulated the eroded sand grains from the land, and with very little outward change to the scenery, this world plodded through the geological time periods that form the framework of every Geology 101 student's attempt at a mnemonic path to success with the test on the Paleozoic Era: Cold Oysters Seldom Develop Many Precious Pearls, or --
Cambrian: major groups of animals appear in the fossil record
Ordovician: first fish swim in the sea
Silurian: plants invade the land
Devonian: first amphibians crawl into the picture
Mississippian: reptiles and limestone!
Pennsylvanian: coal!
Permian: triumph of the reptiles over the amphibians....and then everything crashes because 1 million cubic miles of lava poured out over Siberia, atmospheric CO2 spiked, and Earth got too hot, dry and deoxygenated for 81% of marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species.
OK. I got ahead of myself. Actually the quiet coastline thing started to end in the Devonian, when the amphibians were crawling around.
Patty and I decided to celebrate our fully-COVID-vaccinated status at the start of May 2021 with a camping road trip. We left Birch Bay in a deluge, cranked a podcast, and drove. By the time we reached the turn for Peshastin Pinnacles, the sun was out, and we were ready for a pit stop, snack and leg-stretcher.
The Pinnacles are one of those unique landscapes just off a busy highway that we have driven past innumerable times in the course of our lives, yet never took the time to stop and explore. The small detour from the road opened a window into the much larger turn in the geologic story of Washington, and the creation story of the P'squosa Nation, on whose traditional territory they stand.
370 million years ago the long-stable shore was transformed into a subduction zone -- the dense oceanic crustal plate began to converge with and sink underneath the continental margin, descending into the mantle. In the heat of the planet's interior, the old cold slab melted, and ascending fluids created an arc of volcanoes on the surface above. Within a few million years of this change, most of the planet's continental tectonic plates coalesced to form the supercontinent Pangea. The eventual breakup of Pangea (which featured the opening of the Atlantic Ocean) around 175 million years ago consolidated the geologic pattern of subduction and volcanism that continues to this day here, and gives us the distinction of living at the "active margin" of the continent.
Four subsequent waves of tectonically-driven terrane accretion and intrusion of subducted molten rocks (Omineca, Coast Range, Challis, Cascade) have woven the landscape of today's Washington. The curiously tilted and sculpted slabs that make up the Peshastin Pinnacles are made of sandstone, and not just any sandstone. They are the Chumstick Formation, part of one of the thickest non-marine sedimentary sequences in North America, accumulated between the second and third waves of terrane accretion in the vast lowlands below the peaks of the Coast Range as it existed then. The third wave (Challis) set up the conditions for the preservation of the great thickness of the Chumstick Formation as the subducting Farallon Plate ruptured, with its northern member (Kula Plate) trending northward, wrenching open giant grabens, or downdropped basins, that held the sediments below potential erosive forces for millions of years. The fourth wave (Cascade) continues as I write, with the Juan de Fuca Plate slowly pushing beneath (far beneath!) my desk, lifting up the Chumstick Formation and everything around it from the depths. The complexities of all of these forces acting on the sedimentary pile has folded the stratigraphy, and differential erosion has created the tilted slabs that delight the droves of rock climbers that cherish the Pinnacles for their sport.
The geologic history of Peshastin Pinnacles, nestled in the broader regional picture of tectonic forces at work over unimaginable long periods of time, is a compilation of painstaking geologic field work, laboratory analysis of rock compositions and radioactive element decay rates, many years of peer-reviewed publications, and maybe some good old arm-waving geology. I believe it is enhanced by a foundational story of the P'Squosa describing the symbiotic relationship between people and the land and giving animacy to all parts of the landscape.
The Story of Coyote Bringing Salmon to the Columbia as told by Tom Louie
The legend goes clear back to the animal people. Back then, we didn’t have any chiefs. There were spokespeople that had the knowledge of speaking to the people and asking…
All the people that lived on the river, all they got was bottom fish, you know, the white fish and suckers and carps. And so they had a gathering up there at Kettle Falls and the spokesperson was having a meeting and he wanted to find some brave young man or young men to find out why we didn’t have salmon.
And so there was a cliff on the east side of the river over there, and when the young braves wanted to do something, well they’d take their hand drum and they’d build a little fire and they’d go over to that cliff and they would drum and sing their song. And the people that were curious would go over and see what this young man or whoever it was wanted to offer.
And Coyote heard the news about what they wanted so he thought, “Why, I’ll go do it. I’ll go do it.” So he went over there to that cliff and he built him a little fire and he started singing a song and the song is still among our people today.
So he’d sing the song. And the people were saying, “Boy that’s a different song. Who is that?” So they went over to investigate, to see who was singing the song and what he wanted to offer. And they just got around the corner and said “Naw, that’s just Coyote you know. He’s no good, a trickster”…
So Coyote stayed there until daybreak and he thought “Well, ain’t nobody gonna go with me.” He took off down the river. He was going to go down and see about the salmon.
Well, he got around the Soap Lake area and then he realized that when he left, he left in anger and he didn’t have a sweat. He didn’t have a sweat to cleanse himself, physically, spiritually and mentally. Out there at Soap Lake he made a sweat house and that sweat house still stands today…
So Coyote, after he finished his sweat, well he went on down… He got down to The Dalles, Oregon. And he knew that there was three people down there, three women down there that held the salmon from coming up the river. And the women were Seagull and Snipe and Kingfish. And these were the ladies that wouldn’t let the salmon come up.
Coyote had these spiritual powers so he transformed himself into a little baby and he laid on the bark and he started floating down the river…
And the oldest of these ladies heard the baby crying and kicking and whatnot, and the youngest one wanted to go out there and save the baby. And the oldest one says “Ah no. It’s something bad there. Just let him go. He’ll be all right. He come this far.”
And the youngest one convinced them that they should save him so they did. They went and pulled him into shore. And they fed him and took care of him there.
Well about that time, the roots were being ready out on the prairie down there. So, during the day they would tie the little baby up, tie him to a little tree or something so he wouldn’t crawl into the water.
Well as soon as the ladies got out of sight, Coyote transformed himself back into Coyote. And he found a spot and started digging for water. And he’d dig and dig and dig and dig, until way in the afternoon and he figured it was just about time for them ladies to come back.
Well he’d go and tie himself back up and transform himself back into the baby. And that went on for a few days.
Early one morning the ladies started to go out to the root fields again. And Coyote, he transformed himself back into Coyote and he started digging. And it was getting pretty late in the afternoon and he just got to the point to where water was starting to seep through that little canal he was digging and he thought “Boy if I stop now, they’re going to see what I’ve been doing and they’re really going to fix me.”
So he just kept digging. Digging harder and harder. And pretty soon he seen the ladies coming. And they start running and they were gathering rocks and sticks.
And where Coyote was digging, you will still see them shells on the Columbia River, the freshwater clam shells.
So he took one of them shells and he knew they were going to stone him and throw sticks at him. So he put that ladle on the top of his head so they wouldn’t hurt him. Anyway, he dug all the way through. Then the water start coming. Start coming through, so Coyote he told the salmon to come on.
And Coyote started coming back up the river and the salmon came through. They couldn’t stop it. The ladies couldn’t stop it no more.
But then Coyote got back to his same old tricks, old Coyote. So all the way up through all the rivers that he would come to, he would talk to the spokesperson of that tribe, the Wenatchee, the Yakama, the Entiats, the Sanpoils, all the different tribes of people.
He would go up and he’d tell the spokesperson, he’d say: “Would you like to have some salmon to come up your river?” And they’d say “Yeah, sure would.” And he’d say “Well, if you want salmon to come up, I want the youngest maiden you have.”
So that’s how he traded with all these different tribes that come up.
And he got up into the Okanogan River and way up to Okanogan Falls and the Okanogans, he asked them if they wanted salmon and they said “Sure we’d like to have some salmon.” And he said “Well, if you want salmon I’ll want the youngest maiden in your tribe.”
And they didn’t want to agree with that so they all went back into council, and pretty soon they told Coyote, “Well we’ll have salmon, but we’ll send you a woman down to your camp.”
So here come this old lady, kinda crippled and she was limping and walking. She was going to Coyote’s camp. Coyote got mad. So he just got done feasting on a salmon and he had the fins in a pile. So he took them fins and he threw them up over the falls, at Okanogan Falls.
And he said “That’s all the salmon you guys are gonna get.” And that’s how come all they got up there is the little kokanee salmon. They don’t have big salmon…
Then he brought all the salmon all the way up, all the way up here, and he let them go all the way up through the Arrow Lake area. And at that time that’s when the big ceremony is, when the gatherings started happening at Kettle Falls.
People would come from miles. Even when the two-leggeds come here, they kept that same gathering place. Kettle Falls and Little Falls, and all these gathering places, Chelan, they’d have all the gathering sites…
And now I guess Seagull and Kingfish and Snipe, they dammed the river up again. They got Coulee Dam. They got Chief Joseph Dam. So we’re going to have to find another Coyote to go down and get the salmon back. That’s the legend of Coyote bringing the salmon up the Columbia River.
In the Wenatchi tradition, Peshastin Pinnacles are some of those salmon brought up the river by Coyote, frozen in stone, leaping out of the water... teaching the people to sing with joy at their return to the place of their birth, their home.
For many years, the Pinnacles were marred by a high-voltage power line that was strung across the heart of the outcrop. It was unsightly, potentially dangerous, and frankly disrespectful of the legendary significance of the place. In 2020, Chelan PUD, in consultation with the Colville Confederated Tribes (which include the Wenatchi), PUD rerouted the lines away from the formations as part of a system upgrade. For their efforts, they received the American Cultural Resources Association Industry Award.
A small step on the path to reconciliation....
--David
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