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Headline-grabbing treks across America or part of it are the staple of news stories these days. Someone crosses the desert on one leg; another person bikes across America; a 400-pounder walks across America for fitness. The list goes on and on. Surely there is a "publicity-seeking" dimension to all of this, since 250 pounds can be lost in the quiet of one's home as well as under the Nebraska sun. But often these journeys have a larger purpose, to illustrate a perceived injustice or to bring attention not simply to the person doing the thing but to the cause itself. This, in my judgment, is the signal contribution of Christopher Swain's 1243-mile swim down the Columbia River in 2002-03 and this recently-released film (April 2006) directed by Andy Norris commemorating it. I saw it tonight at the Salem Cinema's "DocuWeek," in my judgment the most significant cultural event of the year in Salem, OR. Though the pro-environmental approach of the film is much more transparent than the Columbia River, the overriding message is clear and should be relatively uncontroversial: the Columbia River is filthy, the Clean Water Act states that the goal is to clean up waterways like the Columbia, people in general want a clean River and we ought to put more effort into realizing these desires. It is the disarming simplicity of the message which may, more than anything, help fuel the extraordinarily complex effort to return the Columbia to a more pristine condition.

Three Points from the Film

Of all the points that can be made in reviewing the film, three stand out to me. The first relates to the rigors of Swain's swim. No human, to our knowledge, had previously completed the 1243-mile swim from the Columbia Lake in British Columbia to the Pacific Ocean. The only living creatures that have done so are the salmon that are now quintupally decimated on the River. Swain originally planned to make the swim from June - December 2002, but financial and other problems necessitated his stopping after five months, finding work, and then not actually finishing until July 2003. The water was as cold as 39 degrees in British Columbia; often it was coated with waste; it could hide, in its massive waves, huge floating fir branches. In an interview Swain mentioned the tremendous loneliness and isolation that accompanied him in this most isolating swim. Yet he persisted. With the energy and focus that often gets people into trouble, he finally arrived in Astoria in July 2003. John Jacob Astor's exploring party of 192 years earlier couldn't have been more elated to see that spot. And Swain wasn't the only one who faced privation. Andy Norris narrated the long days and longer nights, the floors slept on, the cold, unforgiving wind, the sheer exhaustion that accompanied them along the way.

A second point is the effect of the Columbia River development on the native communities. There was no effort to "balance" perspectives in this film, but nevetheless the native spokesmen were eloquent, heartfelt and persuasive. Most wrenching for me was the sense that when The Dalles Dam became fully operational in 1957 a whole culture, centering on Celilo Falls, collapsed. I never knew that the "Chief" in the award-winning film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" was in the mental facility because of alcoholism but in the book he was so committed because of a mental breakdown occasioned by the submerging of Celilo Falls in the backwater of The Dalles Dam. Certainly that theme wouldn't have "flown," so to speak in Hollywood in the mid-1970s. Little attempt was made to nuance the historic and justified complaints of the Natives with more current efforts, legally and otherwise, to ameliorate some of these conditions. But the point is solid, and was made effectively.

Third, the film is a profoundly hopeful one. It points to a rather bleak present, but it also portrays a cadre of intelligent, committed, knowledgeable people who will not give up until cleaner days for the river are ahead. Yet, the cost of hope is often extreme. Fueled by the "high" produced by this swim, Swain has taken on the Hudson and the Charles, those ribbons through the most populous part of the country. But, as luck or fate would have it, his single-minded passion also contributed to strains in his marriage, and a divorce has resulted. Men, young men in particular, when all the duties and responsibilities of family and fidelity are upon them, when equally strong pulls to "make a mark" in the world also press, often have to follow their heart--which may leave their families behind. The myth of "balance" in life is, for a certain personality type, simply that--a myth.

Conclusion

One of the goals of the Native Americans and of Swain is to see The Dalles Dam destroyed, so that fish runs can be restored. The issue is, like most issues on the Columbia River, complex--especially relating to the economics of grain transportation. But there is reason to believe that such a plan, like the recent implosion of the Trojan Nuclear Power plant at Rainier, OR, is not as far-fetched as it seems. When Abraham Lincoln, that most eloquent of our Presidents, was greeted with news that Ulysses S. Grant had taken Vicksburg on the Mississippi River in July 1862, he said that "the father of waters flows unvexed to the sea." I wonder if, one day, the same might be said of the mighty Columbia.

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