THE SALISH SEA - When the sea rose after the last ice age, the waters flooded the great cuts through the earth left by glacial ice. Thick, brooding flows of ice miles high had moved down the landscape, crushing rock and pushing huge berms of rock powder, and sand and gravel before them. The range above was peeled back by the drifting continents, and then hammered down to the crust by peaks of fire sifting the hot breath of the earth up to the sky. The inland sea of the Pacific Northwest, The Salish Sea, became the dominant force of nature west of the volcanic Cascade mountains when the ocean waters filled the ancient canyons.
With the waters came the salmon, swimming along the ancient routes to streams and rivers flowing down the mountains. The salmon were birds cast into the water by an envious Sandhill Crane, and cursed to remember the joy of flight, they live with the promise from the mountains that one day, maybe this year, they will again soar above the clouds.
”BEFORE MY EYES THE WORLD LET FLY,
ALL INNOCENCE, THOUGH BEAUTY SWAYS;
I SAW A FEW BLUE SPARKS OF GLORY,
A COOL PHOTO, A WINSOME STORY.”