As a teenager I greatly admired The Foxfire Book and a string of sequels, sort of an amalgamation of oral history and how-to guide about rural life in the Appalachian Mountains. My family has no particular connection to that corner of the nation, but the books have a unique “voice” that I still like – plain-spoken, pragmatic and evocative of American traditions of hard work in the company of good neighbors.

I was recently reminded of Foxfire while reading George W. Aguilar Sr.’s When the River Ran Wild! Indian Traditions on the Mid-Columbia and the Warm Springs Reservation, Oregon Historical Society Press in association with University of Washington Press, ($22.50, ISBN: 0-295-98484-8.)

Aguilar is a 75-year-old Kiksht Chinookan who has been a soldier, a fisherman, transient field worker, timber faller, carpenter, service station retailer, auto mechanic and blackjack dealer. In When the River Ran Wild! Aguilar demonstrates a richly nuanced memory, a wry sense of humor and a genuine gift for writing. All Northwest people can feel a sense of pride at his accomplishment, but Indians especially owe Aguilar their thanks for recording a now mostly vanished lifestyle centered on the formerly great free-flowing fishing grounds of the Columbia River’s Five Mile Rapids.

If I were a movie producer – and if three-quarters of movies weren’t vapid and hollow examples of corporate decision-making – I’d buy the film rights to When the River Ran Wild! Not only is it loaded with interesting facts about Indian history and practices, it is studded with many little gem-like stories about growing up around the Warms Springs Reservation in the mid-20th century.

One of the things I like best about Aguilar’s book is that it doesn’t try to paint a deceptively pretty picture. At one point in the 1950s, Aguilar and his wife Ella unsuccessfully applied for a federal relocation program that would have moved them to a big city.

“I impatiently looked forward to the time we would be leaving this God-forsaken wasteland of a reservation that had no running water, no electricity, no indoor plumbing, decrepit housing – you name it, the Warm Springs Reservation didn’t have it.” With a tribal job, Aguilar eventually obtained financing to buy a brand-new Ford Fairlane 500 in 1958 – but then hid it behind the shack they lived in, ashamed of having such a thing when 80 to 90 percent of tribal members barely had enough to eat.

Writing of an early-childhood shopping trip to town with his grandmother, Aguilar recalls “I watch a couple of children each drinking a bottle of soda pop. Grandma must have noticed me, for she nudged me and asked me in Indian if I wanted some of what they were drinking. I was overwhelmed with curiosity about what the taste would be like, because it looked so good. With my response of ‘Ee,’ which means yes in Indian, she dug around in her waist-carrying purse, retrieved an Indian-head nickel, and bought me a bottle of strawberry soda pop. I was awestruck by its bright, yummy-looking color.” But he wasn’t expecting the bubbles, which went straight up through his nose, and it was three or four years before he tried this treat again.

Along with items like preparation instructions for ground squirrel – “burn off the animal’s hair in an open fire, dress it out, and skew and roast it over the fire” – Aguilar passes along intriguing stories remembered from childhood. An example: Tom Nye, teased as being “Palai,” or “not quite there,” kept toppling into the river while fishing at Celilo Falls. Only much later did Aguilar learn Nye’s guardian spirit was a river otter. “Nye knew when and who was going to drown in those turbulent waters, and he had the gift of taking that individual’s place.” True? Who knows, but it makes a great yarn.

Recently revisiting his childhood home, Aguilar finds “only silence. The memories remain, but the echoes of the canyon are calm. No children play in the springwater pools. No sweathouse fires heat the rocks. No deer hides are soaking. No buckskin tanning. No wheat or hay growing. The fields are now teeming with juniper trees where the golden heads of wheat once swayed to the whispers of the wind.”

Aguilar’s journey through life has been worthwhile and quietly remarkable. I appreciate his sharing it with us.

– M.S.W.

Matt Winters is editor of the Chinook Observer