Environmental Studies 350: Politics of Salmon

In the Pacific Northwest, salmon are political. The history and current politics of Indigenous peoples, settler colonial infrastructure, law, commerce, hydropower, agriculture, recreation, dam-building and dam removal, treaty rights, environmentalism, science, activism, and sovereignty in the Northwest—and particularly in the Columbia River Basin, or Nch'i-Wana—can be told through the story, and politics, of salmon. For better or worse, the lives of salmon are bound up with the lives of humans, and their future is largely up to our actions. Whitman College, located on the eastern edge of the Columbia River Basin, with the concrete-choked and salmon-bereft Mill Creek flowing through it, is a perfect place to engage the politics of salmon—politics which, whether we realize it or not, we are already a part of. The course will involve regular Friday afternoon excursions and a multi-day field trip in the Columbia River Watershed. May be elected as Politics 350, but must be elected as Environmental Studies 350 to satisfy the Interdisciplinary course requirement for Environmental Studies majors.