Being in the Big Watershed

Exhibition Statement:

Salmon are the cultural lifeblood of the Columbia River. They teach us, feed us and connect the inland northwest to the ocean. Salmon have been an integral part of Native cultures in the Columbia Basin for thousands of years. Their migrations connect the past to the future, offering a cyclical version of time and a model for sustainability.

In the last decade, salmon populations in the Columbia River and its tributaries have been crippled by human impacts. Dams which provide hydroelectricity also impede salmon migrations and survival and contribute to water quality decline. Treaties granting tribes vital land access and fishing rights have been repeatedly broken because of dams. Today, the best hope for ecological and cultural repair is the removal of the four lower Snake River dams.

This work engages with the many layers of stories running through the Columbia watershed. Hand-carved woodcuts embody my lifelong grounding here. Laser-cut woodcuts explore other beings and their stories. Collage with semi-transparent sekishu paper becomes my vessel for layering realities and perspectives. My final compositions span a timeline from the Ice Age Floods to a speculative, dam-less future.

Gary Snyder asked us to “take ourselves as no more and no less than another being in the Big Watershed” when we engage with the wild. This work explores what it means to be a little part of a big whole, to view our more-than-human neighbors as teachers and equals and to understand that this river and ourselves are locked together in becoming.

Cal Waichler, October 2025