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Eileen Delehanty Pearkes

Writer, Speaker, Researcher

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Upper Columbia River Region

The Sense of an Ending

September 20, 2020 by Eileen Delehanty Pearkes 10 Comments

It’s nearly the equinox, when day and night are equal in length, often called the first day of autumn. For several weeks, creeks in the upper Columbia River region have hosted anadromous sockeye salmon, returning home to spawn and die. Chemical changes transform the silver scales of the adults into vivid red. After they spawn […]

Filed Under: Home page, Landscapes, Upper Columbia River Region

Taking the Leap

February 29, 2020 by Eileen Delehanty Pearkes 4 Comments

February 29th, is one of those breakouts – a rogue day in the standard calendar. The year (as we measure it) has been around, more or less, since Ancient Rome. A far older calendar common to most Indigenous cultures is one based on the cycles of the moon. Every four years, February adds one day, […]

Filed Under: Home page, Landscapes, Uncategorized, Upper Columbia River Region

The Submerged Canoe

November 4, 2019 by Eileen Delehanty Pearkes 6 Comments

The Sinixt, or Arrow Lakes Tribe, have been in the news lately. After a decade of legal battles over the right to hunt in the Canadian portion of their territory, their case will be heard at the Supreme Court of Canada. It’s hard to imagine why, in an era of cultural reconciliation for Indigenous people, […]

Filed Under: Home page, Maps, Upper Columbia River Region Tagged With: Columbia River, Kettle River, Sinixt

A reluctant spring

March 22, 2019 by Eileen Delehanty Pearkes 1 Comment

It has been a reluctant transition to spring in the mountains of the upper Columbia Basin. Those who have been here all winter have been tearing their hair out. I have merely been staring at the unmelted snow with astonishment, since I returned several weeks ago. In my garden, a statue of Kuan Yin has […]

Filed Under: Home page, Landscapes, Upper Columbia River Region

Full Flowering and the Columbia River Treaty

June 10, 2018 by Eileen Delehanty Pearkes Leave a Comment

The last time my life was as busy as it has been this spring was the year my second son came into the world. That sunny, damp day in mid-March 26 years ago set off a whirl of caregiving for family that only began to abate in 2002, when my first book emerged in the […]

Filed Under: Home page, Landscapes, Upper Columbia River Region, Water Tagged With: A River Captured, Columbia River Treaty

An Eagle’s Eye

April 3, 2018 by Eileen Delehanty Pearkes

Last week, I travelled south of the international boundary, to Kettle Falls, Washington. Standing on a bluff overlooking the Columbia River, I watched the reservoir pool around a land mass exposed by low water. The indigenous word for this place is ksunkw, “island.” Sinixt and Skoyelpi fishermen, their families and the Salmon Chief once spent […]

Filed Under: Land, Landscapes, Upper Columbia River Region, Water

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About Eileen

Eileen Delehanty Pearkes explores landscape, history and the human imagination in writing, maps and visual notebooks.

Recent Posts

  • Challenging conversations: a unique Stanford symposium on the Columbia River
  • 600-Strong: whoever would have thought?
  • Hockey and gravity
  • Salmon and Columbia River Treaty flood control
  • Flexible Concrete and the Imagined Valve

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