Paper pub. date
November 2013
ISBN 9780870717161 (paperback)
6 x 9 inches , 328 pages. B&W photographs. Index.

Bridging a Great Divide

The Battle for the Columbia River Gorge

Kathie Durbin
Summary
Reviews

In 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Act, setting into motion one of the great land-use experiments of modern times. The act struck a compromise between protection for one of the West’s most stunning landscapes—the majestic Gorge carved by Ice Age floods, which today divides Washington and Oregon—and encouragement of compatible economic development in communities on both sides of the river.

In Bridging a Great Divide, award-winning environmental journalist Kathie Durbin draws on interviews, correspondence, and extensive research to tell the story of the major shifts in the Gorge since the Act’s passage. Sweeping change has altered the Gorge’s landscape: upscale tourism and outdoor recreation, gentrification, the end of logging in national forests, the closing of aluminum plants, wind farms, and a population explosion in the metropolitan area to its west. Yet, to the casual observer, the Gorge looks much the same as it did twenty-five years ago.

How can we measure the success of the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Act? In this insightful and revealing history, Durbin suggests that the answer depends on who you are: a small business owner, an environmental watchdog group, a chamber of commerce. The story of the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area is the story of the Pacific Northwest in microcosm, as the region shifts from a natural-resource-based economy to one based on recreation, technology, and quality of life.


About the author

Kathie Durbin was an award-winning journalist who worked at the Eugene Register-Guard, Willamette Week, The Oregonian, and The Columbian. She is also the author of Tree Huggers: Victory, Defeat, and Renewal in the Northwest Ancient Forest Campaign and Tongass: Pulp Politics and the Fight for the Alaska Rain Forest (OSU Press). She was born in Eugene and lived in Oregon for most of her life.


Read more about this author

"[Durbin] believed the National Scenic Area is 'a gift bestowed by nature and protected by far-sighted, public-spirited people' that keeps on giving; this book is her legacy, her gift to those who will shape its future (p. 1)."

Sy Adler, Oregon Historical Quarterly Summer 2014

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