The Guardians of the Columbia / Mount Hood, Mount Adams and Mount St. Helens - John H. Williams

These animal people, the Indian believed, had inhabited the world before the time of the first grandfather, when the sun was as yet only a star, and the earth, too, had grown but little, and was only a small island. The chief of the animal people was Speelyei, the coyote, not the mightiest but the shrewdest of them all. Speelyei was the friend of "people". He had bidden people to appear, and they "came out."

Looking up the Columbia, near Bonneville. The main channel of the river is on right of the shoal in foreground.

Salmon trying to jump the Falls of the Willamette at Oregon City.

One of the most interesting attempts to account for the existence of the Red Man in the Northwest is the Okanogan legend that tells of an island far out at sea inhabited by a race of giant whites, whose chief was a tall and powerful woman, Scomalt. When her giants warred among themselves, Scomalt grew angry and drove all the fighters to the end of the island. Then she broke off the end of the island, and pushing with her foot sent it floating away over the sea. The new island drifted far. All the people on it died save one man and one woman. They caught a whale, and its blubber saved them from starving. At last they escaped from the island by making a canoe. In this they paddled many days. Then they came to the mainland, but it was small. It had not yet grown much. Here they landed. But while they had been in the canoe, the sun had turned them from white to red. All the Okanogans were their children. Hence they all are red. Many years from now the whole of the mainland will be cut loose from its foundations, and become an island. It will float about on the sea. That will be the end of the world.