This is the Celilo. I came up with the idea for this board at the 2017 RVOD G Ride at Maryhill. I'd been thinking about a dedicated speedboard cut away design that had a shorter wheelbase. I like to ride as short of a wheelbase as I can get away with. It just feels more nimble underfoot. The wheelbase on this board measures 24 3/4".
Maryhill Loops Road, as many riders know, is actually an exhibit of the Maryhill Museum. The museum's founder completed the road in 1913 to demonstrate the importance of well built roads and highways, using new techniques and designs that would allow the automobiles of that period to climb the steep grade from the Columbia River to Goldendale. He is quoted on the Maryhill Museum website as saying "Good roads are more than my hobby, they are my religion". So, the man really liked roads. Moving ahead a century, the road now exists for many uses; the most near and dear use to skateboarders of course, is the road's utility in being a prime location for the sport of downhill. We in the downhill skateboarding community have Maryhill Ratz founder Dean Ozuna to thank for becoming involved with the museum and promoting downhill events as a dynamic community builder and economic generator for the region.
This shot was from this year's RVOD G RIde. It was taken by Robert McCarty. He took really beautiful photos all weekend long. Of course I'm riding solo because I've been passed by everyone on the hill already! But I love the shot because it makes me feel the fast railing corners. Thanks for letting me use this photo Robert! You can check out his awesome photos: @robrmccarty on Instagram.
The Columbia River has a vast geologic and cultural history. 15,000 years ago, as the ice sheets receded, an inhabitant of this region might have seen a 400 foot wall of water come down the Gorge. The walls of ice hemming in Lake Missoula periodically gave way, releasing all the water within to carve out across the badlands of what is now Washington and create the deep canyon of the Columbia as we know it today. But the Columbia was once a river that we today would not recognize. It was a fast flowing torrent that moved meltwater out of major Northwest drainages like the Snake and Clearwater Rivers. It was the lifeline for many of the First Nations tribes to grow their vibrant cultures from. Their ingenuity for sustaining life in the Columbia Plateau can be seen in their basketweaving techniques, their fish traps, their hooks, their clothing, their language, their ability to live within the means that the landscape demanded...
This is a photo from the Washington State Historical archive that gives a great perspective on a Columbia River waterfall that was just a few miles down river from Maryhill Loops Road. This spot was called Wyam by First Nations peoples. Wyam meant "echo of falling water" or "sound of water upon the rocks". Later it became known as Celilo Falls. The area has known human habitation for 15,000 years. Until 1957, it was the oldest continually inhabited community on the North American continent. As the photo demonstrates, the reason for this was that it was an ideal, if not challenging, place to catch salmon. The tribes would build scaffolds out over the rapids from which to spear and net salmon as they moved up over the falls. There are some great videos on Youtube showing the falls and the people working them. The roar of the water was said to have been heard over a mile away.
It is hard to overstate how important these falls were to the native peoples who gathered and lived here. Not only as a food source but also as a melting pot for the different cultures that came. The river, as wide as one mile in places, choked down to just 140 feet wide at the falls. In the twelve subsequent miles below Celilo, the river dropped 82 feet. This section of narrows was referred to as the Dalles. Celilo Falls was sixth largest in the world by volume. It is estimated that 15 to 20 million salmon passed over the falls every year. The area also served as a crossroads between two major cultures. From the Northwest came people who spoke Chinookian languages and from further east came those who spoke Sahaptian languages. Both pulling in trade goods from as far afield as the Great Plains, Alaska and the American Southwest. Near the falls, there were two major villages. On the north bank lived the Wishram people and the south bank was populated by the Wasco. The most intense trading apparently occurred at Nix-Luidix, the Wishram village on the north bank. It has been called the Wall Street of the West.
The Dalles Dam
In 1957, hundreds of people gathered on the banks to watch as the newly constructed Dalles Dam began filling, inundating Celilo Falls and the villages surrounding them. In just a few hours, fifteen thousand years of culture and commerce were submerged beneath the waves. Another tragic violation of native rights had occurred. It would be as if the NASDAQ and Anglo American history had been erased in a matter of hours. It left a vast and rich culture, desolate and destitute, and with few choices but to submit further to the powers held over them.
Heading east along I-84 at the former site of Celilo Falls. It is an unanswerable question now. The wildness of this river sits submerged beneath a series of lakes that were once the Columbia River. Here in the Northwest, however, we are not confronted with the ugly specter of coal fired energy generation except by the trains that haul the material to the coast from the Wyoming coal fields. The dams on the Columbia now serve as a valuable waterway upon which goods and raw materials move back and forth. We flip on the lights any time we need it. It is so ubiquitous, it is easy to forget about where it comes from and who the winners and losers are in that equation. Celilo Falls probably are not coming back in the foreseeable future. But I feel it is important to reflect that these actions amounted to a systematic ethnic cleansing brought about by a rapidly expanding nation with a dark history of similar actions towards indigenous peoples.
The Maryhill Museum is a superb place to get a taste of the native cultures that populated Celilo Falls. Their collection of Columbia Plateau baskets is stunning. The stencil on the bottom of this board is borrowed from this tradition. It is humbling, wondrous and saddening to stand on the banks of the Columbia north of Peach Beach and try to envision the river flowing rapidly past. To imagine how vastly different it all would look if the bustling villages lay before you and not the scattering of fruit orchards and truck stops that occupy this area now. The intent of this board are two fold: to create a short wheelbase board that I felt would be appropriate for this hallowed grade and to make a thing in the spirit that encourages its rider to envision an overlay upon the present landscape, all that has gone before. Ride on.
