UW News

April 17, 2008

A conservation success story: Hoh River restoration celebrated in traveling exhibit at Burke

UW News

Wildlife photographer Keith Lazelle, whose splendid images of the Hoh River valley are going on display at the Burke Museum and in a new book, says that though he shoots scores of exposures, he usually knows it right away when he has the photo he wants.


“Yes, you know the real keepers. Something about the quality of the light, the color or the composition,” Lazelle said by phone from his home near Quilcene, Wash.


And what photos they are: near-breathtaking scenes of untouched wilderness — glowing sunsets, rocky beaches, moss-covered maples and creeks flowing as they have for millennia.


Fourteen such images will be featured at the Burke in Fast Moving Water: The Hoh River Story, a traveling exhibit that will be on display from April 24 through June 8. The exhibit, which will tour Washington State after its run at the Burke, was organized by the Hoh River Trust, which also is publishing the companion book.


The book, Fast Moving River: Images and Essays from the Hoh River, will feature 82 of Lazelle’s photographs and essays by 18 writers, including David Montgomery, UW professor of Earth and space sciences and director of the Quaternary Research Center.


Lazelle said the scope of the assignment, given him by the Hoh River Trust — the group that seeks to preserve and protect the area — was large indeed. “The Hoh River Trust wanted to document from the headwaters to the mouth in all four seasons,” he said. He began shooting in January of 2007.


He said he went out four to five days a month, getting about 100 photos each time. Of these, he said, he usually sent 40 to 50 to Documentary Media, the group overseeing publication of the book. In all, he said, “I shot about 7,000 to 8,000 images, which I edited to 700 or 800, from which they chose the 80 in the book.”


The Hoh River Valley is home to one of the last intact temperate rainforests on Earth, the Hoh Rain Forest in Olympic National Park. The river is one of the last virtually pristine rivers in the country, flowing over 50 miles from high in the Olympic Mountains into its estuary at the Pacific Ocean.


Press notes for the exhibit state, “Visitors will follow the story of the Hoh River, from its rich history and cultural significance, to the remarkable tale of cooperation among environmentalists, local communities, tribes, government and the timber industry to protect and preserve the river.” Accompanying the photos in the exhibit will be text and nature sounds by Emmy-award-winning sound engineer Gordon Hempton.


In his essay, titled “Organized Chaos,” Montgomery remembered his first visit to the Hoh River, just after arriving at the UW. The essay’s title comes from the term geomorphologist Tim Abbe coined to describe the logjams that form in rivers and are now also made by humans to manage river ecology. Montgomery wrote, “The Hoh River is many things to many people, but to my graduate students and me the river proved quite a teacher, a natural laboratory full of surprises and insights about what rivers of the Pacific Northwest were like before they were cleared of wood and logjams to open the region for navigation and commerce.”


A member of the governing board of the Hoh River Trust, Montgomery praised the group for its management of the river, saying while others talk about restoration, the trust “is actually doing it.”


He said the Hoh and its neighbor, the Queets River, “teach us how to restore rivers throughout the Northwest. They are role models, in that sense.” He added, “The Hoh is the first place where I’ve seen a visionary, long-term, rational effort to restore a river in this region.”


Lazelle said it’s simplicity he’s looking for in the many exposures he takes looking for the right shot. He referred to a photo of a peach-colored sunset, titled “Hoh River Enters the Pacific Ocean”: “If I was able to take you through the sequence of 10 shots that led up to that, you’d see it is a certain simplification of design, making it simpler and simpler.” Little wonder, then, that in biographical materials on his Web site, he speaks of his interest in haiku.


There will be a book signing and reception for members of the Burke Museum from 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, April 23, at the museum. For more information about the Burke, its programs and its exhibits, visit online here.


The Hoh River Trust also will hold its second-annual Hoh-Down, an evening of socializing featuring Lazelle and including music provided by the Garfield High School Jazz Combo, from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Thursday, May 8, at the museum. For more information on the trust, visit online at http://www.hohrivertrust.org.  





 Native artists coming to the Burke on April 26

 


Nine artists from the Yakama, Umatilla and Nez Perce nations will visit the Burke Museum from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, April 26, for public demonstrations of corn husk and tule mat-weaving, saddle-making and bead work.


 


The artists’ demonstrations of living arts of the Columbia River Plateau are offered to supplement and help bring to life two exhibits currently on view at the Burke, Peoples of the Plateau: The Indian Photographs of Lee Moorhouse, 1898-1915 and This Place Called Home, which will run through June 8.


 


Visitors are invited to meet the artists and learn more about their crafts. For more information, visit online at http://www.washington.edu/burkemuseum/.