There are dozens of way to study place, and one of the challenges of developing the Columbia River Studies course was to come up with a way of approaching that ambiguous concept. We looked at the methodologies provided by the disciplines of history, literature, biology, and physics, and while all of those approaches were helpful, none did all that we needed. We finally settled on the approach taken in recent studies of place by geographers. Those studies tended to reach naturally across disciplines to cover the sorts of questions we hoped would engage our students’ curiosity. We relied most heavily on Robert David Sacks’ Homogeographicus(1997), an approach that gave us very neat, but highly complex and intellectually ambiguous categories.

We were also inspired by a couple of other sources. In Ceremonial Time, John Hansen Mitchell looks at 15 thousands years of history on a square-mile tract outside of Boston. Hansen’s highly readable book shows how science and humanities can come together with oral tradition to answer some of our questions about a place. Mitchell also wrote an engaging book about crossing through different landscapes, Walking towards Walden: A Pilgrimage in Search of Place. We also used the ideas of many other authors, all of whom are listed in the Bibliography.

The example used for the explanatory discussion relates to the Catherine Creek site

Forces

*What physical forces–climate, moving water, human-made devices–are at work in this place?

*What social forces–law, class, community, family–have affected this place?

Discussion: Yakama Basalt cliffs, formed by the Yakama lava flows that were undermined by the Missoula floods more than 6,000 years ago. The cliffs were under at least 200 feet of water during the great floods, which scraped off all the topsoil up to an elevation of 1,000 feet. The cliffs were later covered by 3 to 4 feet of Mt. St. Helen’s ash. This dramatic landscape formed the backdrop for USFS botanist Robin Dobson, who discussed the ways the agency is currently managing Catherine Creek.

Perspectives

*How do others–scientists, outsiders, community members–descibe this place?

*What meanings has the larger community given to this place?

Discussion: The roots of Camas plants were gathered by native peoples for millenia as a major source of food. After the poisonous Death Camas has finished blooming, the plant and root look like Camas. While the plants were in bloom, native peoples dug up the Death Camas plants to eliminate them from gathering sites.

Place and Space

*Where is this place in relation to other places?

*What connections are most important between this place and the larger world

Discussion: A visitors’ path meets an old road, once used to transport garbage to a county dump. Across the river, a train reminds us that the Columbia River has long been used as a transportation corridor by farmers, industrialists, and manufacturers.

Self

*How do you describe your feelings about this place?

*How does this place affect your relationships to other people and other places?

Discussion: Three Columbia River Studies students create memories of Catherine Creek by climbing a 600-foot cliff above the old ranch site.