Here is a curious tree that appears twisted, almost torn apart by the rugged topography of the region, with branches whose names betray multiple and complex influences: French, English, and indigenous languages...

The Columbia is a connecting river, a bridge between the vast Pacific Ocean, some large cities of the American West, and the interior of the United States: continental Oregon and landlocked states such as Idaho, Montana, and parts of Wyoming. Standing like a wall between these two spaces, the majestic Cascade Range and its stratovolcanoes rise high into the sky and collect intense precipitation from their great height, living up to their name. The amount of water that falls on these mountains is among the highest in North America, with nearly 3,500 millimeters of rain in some places, while beyond these peaks near the coast, higher up in the trees, a more arid climate prevails in the high plateaus. In this environment of small, dry branches, where the rainfall is swallowed up on one side by the Cascade Range and on the other by the Rockies, the Columbia River and its tributaries flow freely, swollen by the rains from the surrounding mountains and the spring melt of the region's glaciers. In fact, further up the branches of the tree, we find a well-watered territory: the Rockies, where the Snake River, the Columbia's main tributary, originates. It is then in Kennewick, Washington, that the dove and the snake meet and merge...

Among the river trees collected in my herbarium, the Columbia is not a giant with its 669,000 km²—1.2 times the size of Texas—but it ranks third in North America in terms of flow, behind the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence. These powerful mountain rivers once allowed people to communicate and fish, fish to migrate to reproduce, and today, hydroelectric power plants to operate. The river is home to a plethora of animal and plant species that have found refuge in numerous national parks, such as Grand Teton, Yellowstone, Glacier National Park, Mount Rainier National Park, and North Cascades National Park, to name just a few on the American side. It is, in a way, the northern counterpart of the Colorado River, another concentrated source of imagination that gives substance to the American wilderness.

A tree to reflect this river? The giant cedar, Thuja plicata, a conifer native to the region irrigated by the Columbia. Now found throughout the world as an ornamental species (it is easy to prune), this tree can actually reach a considerable size—up to 60 meters!—and thrive in the dense shade of the lush canopy of the Pacific Northwest's temperate rainforests. Of course, the peoples of the tree, the Spokane, Coeur d'Alene, Yakama, Wanamaki, Nez Perce, Shoshone, Chinook, and Palouse, have used it for all kinds of everyday crafts, but also for the famous totem poles, ritual objects central to the spirituality of some of these peoples.

Columbia cedar, Thuja Columbiana