Empty Nets: Indians, Dams, and the Columbia River (Culture and Environment in the Pacific West) [Paperback]

Roberta Ulrich (Author)

Book Description

Series: Culture and Environment in the Pacific West | Publication Date: November 1999

"A stirring human document for these times"

Empty Nets is a disturbing history of broken promises and justice delayed. It chronicles a native peoples' fight to maintain their livelihood and culture in the face of an indifferent federal bureaucracy and hostile state governments.

In 1939, the U.S. government promised to provide Columbia River Indians with replacements for traditional fishing sites flooded in the backwater of the Bonneville Dam. Roberta Ulrich recounts the Indians' sixty-year struggle, in the courts and on the river, to persuade the government to keep its promise.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Masterfully researched and lucidly told, 'Empty Nets' gives a fresh, in-depth account of the chicanery and environmental degradation that have confronted Indian fishermen on the Columbia River over the past half century. Roberta Ulrich's book is must reading for all who care about the critical events that have shaped the modern Pacific Northwest." -- Charles Wilkinson, Moses Lasky Professor of Law at the University of Colorado, and author of Crossing the Next Meridian and Fire on the Plateau

"Roberta Ulrich, a long-experienced and highly credible journalist, has written an important and powerful book that stands as a metaphor for our continued injustices to Indians and must shame us all. It is a stirring human document for these times, and I recommend it heartily." -- Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., author of The Nez Perce Indians and the Opening of the Northwest and A Walk Toward Oregon

About the Author

ROBERTA ULRICH is a former reporter for United Press International and The Oregonian, where she created the paper’s first beat covering Native American issues and came to know many of the families dispossessed by the Bonneville Dam. She lives in Beaverton, Oregon. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Oregon State University Press (November 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0870714694
• ISBN-13: 978-0870714696
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,435,073 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

There is a saying that newspaper reporting is the first draft of history. After 50 years, more or less, of writing first drafts, I retired and turned to writing second drafts of history. The result has been two books: Empty Nets: Indians, Dams and the Columbia River, Oregon State University Press 2nd ed. 2007; and American Indian Nations from Termination to Restoration 1953-2006, University of Nebraska Press 2010. Although both revolve around federal Indian policies they rely heavily on my interviews with Indian tribal leaders and tribal members affected by those policies. I am not Indian but I have sought guidance from tribal people about the appropriateness of my work and offered to back away if some Native writer wanted to take on those subjects.

As for my background, I grew up in Eastern Washington, graduated from Washington State University, worked for newspapers in Pullman and Hoquiam, WA, and Clovis, NM, spent about 25 years with United Press International (which was still United Press in my first tour) and finished my career with the Oregonian of Portland, OR. I have lived in a suburb of POrtland for 43 years except for a 3 1/2 year assignment to Washington, DC. I have two sons, four grandchildren and one great grandchild. I like to hike, preferably when the Oregon rains let up or I am in North Idaho, where there is more sunshine.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Valuable facts about an essential story but in a repetitive narrative, May 24, 2009

By 

Arthur Digbee (Indianapolis, IN, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Empty Nets: Indians, Dams, and the Columbia River Second Edition (Culture and Environment in the Pacific West) (Paperback)

One of the more depressing features of American history is the remarkable diversity of ways in which Native American rights have been violated. This book tells the story of a sixty-year struggle to get in-lieu fishing sites on the Columbia River when the original fishing sites were flooded by dams. Everyone agreed that the Indians had a right to in-lieu sites, and eventually their allies included governors, senators and congressmen, and yet another twenty years passed before action resulted.

Ulrich's story of how whites failed the river people provides an invaluable source for those interested in the topic. But it's a problematic read because 200 pages of bureaucratic stonewalling and procrastination don't make for a compelling narrative. All too often, the book becomes a litany of depressing facts more than a story. Ulrich's chronological organization, instead of building the history around themes, does not help her overcome this narrative weakness. The chronology just emphasizes the "more of the same" nature of the bureaucratic failings instead of strengthening either the drama or the analytics.

The basic issues are straightforward enough. The Army Corps of Engineers built dams on the Columbia River. These dams these drowned traditional Indian fishing sites to which Indians had treaty rights. The US government agreed to provide alternative, "in lieu" sites. The Corps agreed in principle but didn't find it interesting in practice to build fishing sites. Politically, it was also more rewarding to build recreational sites for whites than in lieu sites for Indians. The Bureau of Indian Affairs was its usual incompetent self and did not move the in lieu sites forward. White fishermen had no interest in the rights of Indian fishers. There were conflicts with other users of the rivers, such as sailboarders, residential developers, and the railroads on each shore. So all the whites agreed that the Indians had a right to in lieu sites but nobody actually did anything to provide the sites. Meanwhile white overfishing and white dam building destroyed the salmon runs and reduced the number of fish on the river.

So there you have it: a story that needs to be told, but I wish it had been told a little differently.