Celebrate Elwha Dam Removal Ceremony

By Bret Wirta-The Incidental Explorer

Saturday September 17th 2011

The warm weather held for the Elwha Dam removal ceremony here on the Olympic Peninsula. This was the culmination of a week of festivities that marked the beginning of the removal of the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams, the largest dam removal and restoration project in our country. My wife Trisha and I felt fortunate to be invited. Dozens of dignitaries and a couple hundred invited guests were shuttled to the Elwha Dam site. The security was overwhelming. Federal Marshals and Department of Homeland Security officers in full body armor with bomb sniffing dogs combed the site. There were even agents climbing in trees on the ridge behind us. (We heard one fall during the ceremony with snapping branches and a thud!

There were many dignitaries present. Actor Tom Skerrit was the MC. He’s starred in the movies, “Alien”, “Top Gun”, and one of my all-time favorites, “A River Runs Through It.” The speakers included tribal leaders, National Park Service officials, senators, congressman, the governor and even President Obama’s Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar.

What began with cold drizzle brightened to a sunny day. The ceremony was blessed by music, dance and dozens of paintings, drawings, and murals arched along the walkway over the top of the dam. Local artists and high school students performed. The Elwha tribe chanted and drummed. The day was sanctified by the tribe’s spiritual leader who wove the words of Jesus, their tribal ancestors and the voice of the Elwha River into a rich story, a story that began with wailing and supplication a century ago but finally, today, with answered prayers.

The warm sun shone down on us and the tribe sang out in joy to the river. I thought of all the decades of work that political and tribal leaders have invested in getting us to this day. This dam removal, when complete in three years, will mean the Elwha River will flow free for its entire 70-mile length, from its source at the glaciers of Mt. Olympus to its mouth at the Strait of Juan De Fuca.

Trish and I walked slowly over the dam, the same dam I’ve visited with my parents and Trisha’s parents, over the same river I’ve hiked with son and rafted with my daughter. We looked down into the canyon far below. There in the blue-green water a few dozen salmon, the scanty remains of a fish run that once numbered in the hundreds-of-thousands, were bumping up against the base of the dam. They swam patiently back and forth as they have for a hundred years waiting for us to remove this obstacle to their life’s journey. Well the salmon won’t have to wait much longer.

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This entry was posted on Friday, September 30th, 2011 at 2:40 pm and is filed under Audio/Video, Author, Bret Wirta, Summer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.