"Big River" Book Olympia Launch Event

On June 4^th at Browsers Bookshop, experience a multimedia journey along the Columbia River from source to sea with photographer David Moskowitz, author Eileen Delehanty Pearkes, and additional special guests as part of the launch of a new book, Big River: Resilience and Renewal in the Columbia Basin. This event will be held upstairs at the bookstore.

In Big River: Resilience and Renewal in the Columbia Basin, (new June 2024 from Braided River) award-winning photographer David Moskowitz and writer Eileen Delehanty Pearkes illuminate the natural history, hydrogeology, beauty, and human activity on the Columbia River, while also highlighting the challenges facing the region and the people working on sustainable solutions. 

Join a captivating presentation on the people, flora, and fauna that inhabit the basin of the dynamic Columbia River. 

The Columbia River watershed encompasses immense ecological, cultural, and economic value, the benefits of which its inhabitants have wrangled over for centuries. As we come to terms with the unsustainable nature of our relationship with this watershed, and local Indigenous nations renew their efforts to steward their territories, we have reached an inflection point. 

This event is part of a series of international book events celebrating the book launch of Big River throughout the Pacific Northwest. Big River explores the Columbia River watershed as one living, interdependent entity that embraces a broad cultural and ecological perspective. 

The culmination of Moskowitz’s many years of photographing the river and exploring its watershed and Eileen’s decades of research, Big River seeks a path forward for the Columbia River watershed, balancing the demands around water, salmon, agriculture, energy, and climate with the fundamental need for a sustainable living river.

Big River is published by Braided River, a literary and conservation nonprofit, and an imprint of Mountaineers Books. This event is also co-sponsored by Save Our wild Salmon Coalition. Learn more at braidedriver.org and bigrivercolumbia.com

Photographer, author, wildlife biologist, and tracker David Moskowitz is the author of Caribou Rainforest, Wildlife of the Pacific Northwest, and Wolves in the Land of Salmon, and coauthor of Peterson’s Field Guide to North American Bird Nests. His work has been featured in the New York Times, Sierra, High Country News, and Audubon Magazine, as well as by organizations such as the National Wildlife Federation, Endangered Species Coalition, and Nature Conservancy of Canada. www.davidmoskowitz.net

Eileen Delehanty Pearkes explores landscape, history, and the human imagination through writing, maps, and visual notebooks, focusing on Indigenous culture and the power of water. She has researched the international Columbia River basin for more than two decades. Pearkes is the author of The Geography of Memory, A River Captured: The Columbia River and Catastrophic Change, and The Heart of a River. www.edpearkes.com