A Force for Nature: Nancy Russell's Fight to Save the Columbia Gorge (Paperback)
Staff Reviews
Author Event with Bowen Blair
Nov. 9, 2022 at 7 pm at Columbia Center for the Arts
Nancy Russell’s Legacy at Cape Horn: Inside a National Scenic Area Campaign
Lecture Description
In 1980, the western Columbia Gorge’s iconic vistas were on the brink of destruction. The new I-205 bridge would soon link the vulnerable century farms high above the Columbia River in Skamania County to downtown Portland. Every generation since 1907 had tried to protect the Gorge from haphazard development, but had failed. This was the last opportunity, not just to protect a world-class landscape, but to fulfill Russell’s dream of a major park at Cape Horn that mirrored Crown Point across the river. Blair provides a behind-the-scenes look at Russell’s campaign to create a park and trail at Cape Horn which, in many ways, is a microcosm of her broader fight to establish the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, where successes were temporary and failure would be permanent.
Speaker Bio
Bowen Blair is an attorney who, as former executive director of Friends of the Columbia Gorge and senior vice president for the Trust for Public Land, has helped protect some of the nation’s most important lands. He has overseen the transfer of several hundred thousand acres to public and tribal ownership, and personally negotiated the purchase of over thirty properties, including Hetes’wits Wetes (“Precious Land”), a 10,300-acre ranch near Hells Canyon that marked the Nez Perce Tribe’s first return to Oregon since the War of 1877, and a $32 million conservation easement over 4,000 acres of old growth forest for the Quinault Indian Nation. In the Gorge, Blair helped draft and lobby the National Scenic Area Act and negotiated the purchase of Dalles Mountain Ranch, Lyle Point, and hundreds of acres at Cape Horn, Rowena, and along the Mosier Twin Tunnels. Blair was appointed by two Oregon governors to the Columbia River Gorge Commission, which he chaired. His book, A Force for Nature: Nancy Russell’s Fight to Save the Columbia Gorge, will be published in October by Oregon State University Press.
The 85-mile-long Columbia Gorge forms part of the border between Oregon and Washington and is one of the nation’s most historic and scenic landscapes. Many of the region’s cultural divisions boil over here—urban versus rural, west of the mountains versus east—as well as clashes over private property rights, management of public lands, and tribal treaty rights.
In the early 1980s, as a new interstate bridge linked the City of Portland to rural counties in Washington, the Gorge’s renowned vistas were on the brink of destruction. Nancy Russell, forty-eight years old and with no experience in advocacy, fundraising, or politics, built a grassroots movement that overcame 70 years of failed efforts and bitter opposition from both Oregon and Washington governors, five of the six Gorge counties, 41,000 Gorge residents, and the Reagan administration. While building her campaign, Russell stopped subdivisions, factories, and government neglect through litigation brought by her organization, Friends of the Columbia Gorge, and last-second land purchases by the Trust for Public Land (TPL). Initially ignored, then demonized, Russell’s tires were slashed and her life threatened.
The Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Act barely passed—on the last day of the congressional session in 1986—and was signed by a reluctant President Reagan hours before the bill would die. Russell positioned the Friends to be a watchdog and orchestrated the purchase of thousands of acres of land for the public. Bowen Blair, an attorney, former executive director of Friends of the Columbia Gorge, and TPL senior vice president, brings an insider’s perspective to the tumultuous and inspiring story of this conservation battle.
“In a time when the world feels tilting towards despair, read this book. Learn from the example of one courageous woman who didn't know how to give up and overcame what seemed insurmountable odds to give us, and future generations, a national treasure--the unspoiled beauty of the Columbia River Gorge. This sweeping story, meticulously researched, affords us much needed hope that values such as integrity, idealism and altruism still exist.” —Marcy Houle, author of A Generous Nature and The Prairie Keepers
"The Columbia River Gorge was the nation’s first proposed national scenic area, and certainly its most controversial. Now, forty years after I held the first of several contentious hearings for the National Scenic Area Act, it protects one of the country’s most scenic and historic landscapes, as well as its cultural and recreational values. The Gorge’s economy and population thrive. We should look to the National Scenic Area as a model for protecting other nationally significant, complex areas, and to Nancy Russell and A Force for Naturefor inspiration.” —Bob Packwood, former U.S. Senator, sponsor of the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Act.
“As a former Oregon Governor, a former Gorge commissioner, and especially as a woman, I always admired Nancy Russell for the monumental challenges she overcame to protect the Columbia Gorge. A Force for Nature describes Russell’s against-all-odds campaign in a way that entertains and inspires readers. And readers can draw insights into protecting their own treasured landscapes—even if those landscapes don’t span 85 miles, two states, a major river, and a mountain range.” —Barbara Roberts, former Governor, State of Oregon
"A Force for Nature: Nancy Russell’s Fight to Save the Columbia Gorgeis great reading for anyone who has played a role, big or small, or wants to, in the battles to conserve the lands, landscapes and wildlife of Greater Yellowstone and the wider West." —Robert Liberty, Mountain Journal
"[A] fast-paced and gripping narrative.... An inspirational tale that embodies the best of American grit and determination." —Paul Krause, Merion West