Back in the year 2000, I picked up a hitchhiker named Mimi on my way up the Slocan Valley, doing research for The Geography of Memory. Mimi told me I … Read More... about Thank you, Charlie Maxfield
About Eileen
Eileen Delehanty Pearkes explores landscape, history and the human imagination in writing, maps and visual notebooks. … Read More about About Eileen
Big River: Resilience and Renewal in the Columbia Basin
Big River: Resilience and Renewal in the Columbia Basin (Braided River Press) explores the beauty and power of the international Columbia River watershed, fourth-largest by water volume in North America.
This visual journey features award-winning photographer David Moskowitz and graceful narrative by Eileen Delehanty Pearkes.
The future of the great river of the West circles around the complex environmental and economic force of the 1964 Columbia River Treaty between the US and Canada. Indigenous Tribes across the watershed have called to update management strategies in these changing times, including the reintroduction of ocean salmon above Grand Coulee dam and liberation of flows that support thriving of the keystone species of Columbia River tribal culture. In 2023, the Biden administration/US Department of the Interior pledged $200 million to support this process.
An inspirational, informative resource for educators and conservationists, Big River celebrates the Columbia and its many gifts with beauty and promise.
Launched June 5, 2024 in Seattle, Washington.
Available for purchase on Amazon.
What people are saying:
- “A thought-provoking and visually stunning portrait of an embattled paradise.” – Kirkus Review
Heart of the River
This is a book for anyone, of any age, who cares about rivers.
This story of the Columbia River is unique. Told from the river’s perspective, it is an immersive, empathetic portrait of a once-wild river and of the Sinixt, a First People who lived on the mainstem of this great western river for thousands of years and continue to do so even though Canada declared them “extinct” in 1956. The book’s re-release comes at a critical time for natural systems and for reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples across North America.
Lavishly illustrated by Nelson, BC, designer Nichola Lytle, this portrait of a globally significant river will inspire anyone who reads it to care about the future of the salmon, a fish that unites all of us in its quest for freedom and possibility.
Available now for pre-order on Amazon. Available in bookstores and online retailers on April 16, 2024.
The Geography of Memory
The Geography of Memory is back in a greatly expanded, 20th anniversary edition. New maps, more photos, groundbreaking research and several essays by contemporary Sinixt people, all inform this important history of a transboundary First Nation that the Canadian government nearly succeeded in wiping from cultural memory. Learn more about the “American” tribe that took Canada to court, and in a landmark 2021 Supreme Court decision, proudly restored their Aboriginal right to access 80% of their traditional…
A River Captured
This engaging travelogue surveys important history: who owns water, how should water be valued and can hydro-electric systems be managed for fisheries and other eco-system values? Back in a new edition (Fall, 2022 release) with updates on the treaty negotiation process over the past decade, A River Captured is a compelling narrative that outlines a central ethical challenge: how to repair and restore some of what has been lost. While the 1964 Columbia River Treaty is often praised as a model water management agreement between the US and Canada, the story under the surface reveals greed, betrayal and heavy-handed tactics employed by the government in Canada, as the lauded treaty upended a healthy ecosystem with several dams and large storage reservoirs.